Monthly Archives: July 2020

Keeping Track

Random Rewind: 1993, Game One Hundred Fifty-one

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MINNESOTA 5, NEW YORK 4 IN NEW YORK

Date:  Tuesday, September 21.

Batting stars:  Pedro Munoz was 3-for-4 with two home runs (his eleventh and twelfth) and all five RBIs.  Brian Harper was 3-for-4.  Dave Winfield was 2-for-4 with a double and two runs.  Jeff Reboulet was 2-for-4.

Pitching stars:  Willie Banks struck out six in five innings, giving up three runs (two earned) on three hits and five walks.  Carl Willis struck out two in two perfect innings.

Opposition stars:  Danny Tartabull was 2-for-3 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch.  Bobby Munoz pitched 2.1 scoreless innings, giving up one hit and striking out two.

The game:  Dion James hit a one-out double in the first, went to third on a ground ball, and scored on a wild pitch to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead.  It stayed 1-0 until the fourth.  With one out, Winfield and Harper singled and Munoz hit a three-run homer, putting the Twins in front 3-1.

The Yankees got one back in the bottom of the fourth when Mike Stanley walked, Bernie Williams singled, and Wade Boggs reached on an error.  It stayed 3-2 until the sixth, when Winfield doubled and Munoz delivered a two-out two-run homer to make it 5-2 Minnesota.

It couldn't come easy, of course.  New York cut the margin to 5-3 in the bottom of the sixth when Mike Gallego doubled and scored on a Jim Leyritz single.  It stayed 5-3 until the ninth.  Rick Aguilera retired the first two Yankees, but Tartabull singled, Matt Nokes singled, and Stanley hit an RBI single, cutting the margin to 5-4 with Williams coming up to bat.  But Williams grounded out to first, and the game was over.

WP:  Banks (10-11).  LP:  Jim Abbott (10-13).  S:  Aguilera (31).

Notes:  Terry Jorgensen was at first base in place of Kent Hrbek.  Jorgensen was primarily a third baseman--he played just nine games at first in this season, starting only three.  Jeff Reboulet was at third in place of Mike Pagliarulo.  Pags played 79 games at third, Jorgensen 45, and Reboulet 34.

David McCarty was in right field.  Kirby Puckett played the most games in right, 47 (compared to 95 in center).  Munoz played 41, McCarty 34, and Winfield 31.  Munoz was in left in this game, a place he played 64 games (tied with Shane Mack.  Mack played 67 games in center).

Harper was batting .305--he would finish at .304 and was the only .300 hitter on the team.  Puckett came close--he was at .293 and finished at .296,  The Twins batted .264, ninth in the league.  New York and Toronto led at .279.

Hrbek led the team with 25 home runs.  Puckett was second at 22 and Winfield followed at 21.  Munoz hit 13, Harper 12, and Mack 10.  The Twins hit 121 home runs, twelfth in the league.  Texas led at 181.

It was a hitters' year, but even allowing for that the Twins' rotation wasn't very good.  Kevin Tapani led in starts and went 12-15, 4.43.  Scott Erickson was 8-19, 5.19.  Banks led the starters in ERA, going 11-12, 4.04.  Jim Deshaies was 11-13, 4.41.  They never really found a fifth starter.  Rookie Eddie Guardado started 16 games and went 3-8, 6.18.  Mike Trombley made 10 starts and went 6-6, 4.88, stats which obviously include his relief appearances.  Aguilera was solid in the bullpen, posting 34 saves with an ERA of 3.11.  Willis was 3-0, 3.10 with 5 saves and Larry Casian was 5-3, 3.02.  The Twins were next-to-last in ERA at 4.71.  Chicago led at 3.70.  The Twins were twelfth in WHIP at 1.46.  Boston led with 1.33.

In winning this game, the Twins used probably their best starter (Banks) and their three best relievers (Casian, Willis, and Aguilera).  And they did manage to beat the Yankees, even if just barely.

This was the first game of a stretch in which the Twins would win eight out of nine.

Record:  The Twins were 63-88, in sixth place in the American League West, 22.5 games behind Chicago.  They would finish 71-91, tied for fifth place with California, 23 games behind Chicago.

The Yankees were 83-69, in second place in the American League East, 5 games behind Toronto.  They would finish 88-74, in second place, 7 games behind Toronto.

Random record:  The Twins are 55-49 in Random Rewind games.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–July 14

Jesse Tannehill (1874)
Happy Chandler (1898)
Johnny Murphy (1908)
Robert Creamer (1922)
Ralph Rowe (1924)
Bob Purkey (1929)
Billy McCool (1944)
Steve Stone (1947)
Danny Walton (1947)
Vic Rodriguez (1961)
Robin Ventura (1967)
Derrick May (1968)
Jose Hernandez (1969)
Tim Hudson (1975)

Albert "Happy" Chandler was the commissioner of baseball from 1945-1951.

Author Robert Creamer wrote a biography of Babe Ruth which is still considered to be one of the best baseball books ever.

Ralph Rowe was a coach for the Twins from 1972-1975.  He had been a minor league outfielder in 1942, 1947-1955, and 1957-1961, spending the last three years in the Twins' organization.  He was mainly a manager or coach in those years--I assume he only played if they ran into a shortage of players or something.  He managed in the Twins' organization from 1959-1960 and 1962-1971, winning league championships with Wilson in the Carolina League in 1963, Orlando in the Southern League in 1968, and Charlotte in the Southern League in 1969.  He also coached for Baltimore from 1981-1984.

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WGOM Games

Initial Time We Play A Game With Two Letters For The Second Week After The Fourth Of July

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Just in case the guy on KFAN has got his intellectual property ducks in a row with his Kickstarter thing, I will not refer to this game by the same name he has given his version. Instead, this will be the initial time I "host" a game for the second on this platform with the following rules:

1. I will give you two letters (for example, "K.P"). All the items that week will be a two-word answer in which each word begins with letter in the appropriate spot. The answer can be a person, place, thing, or other two-word phrase. For example, if "K.P." are the letters, then one answer might be Kirby Puckett. Another answer might be "Krakow, Poland." And so on.

2. I will provide six clues for each answer. The clues will be provided one-at-a-time.

3. If you believe you know the answer, make a Spoilered guess in the thread. The point will go to whomever correctly identifies the answer first. If you submit an incorrect response, then you can no longer submit for that particular answer.

4. The participant with the most correct answers at the end of the week wins. (If there is a tie, then I will have tiebreakers for only the participants in the tie.)

5. You're going to be on the honor system, but you should not be using the internet or other resources.

The letters will be revealed, and clues for the first phrase will commence at 9:30am.

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Keeping Track

Random Rewind: 2016, Game Twelve

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MINNESOTA 3, LOS ANGELES 2 IN MINNESOTA (12 INNINGS)

Date:  Sunday, April 17.

Batting stars:  Trevor Plouffe was 3-for-4 with a double and a walk.  Oswaldo Arcia was 3-for-5 with a walk.  Miguel Sano was 2-for-4 with a double.  Joe Mauer was 2-for-4 with two walks.

Pitching stars:  Kyle Gibson pitched seven innings, giving up two runs on four hits and two walks and striking out four.  Kevin Jepsen pitched a perfect inning, striking out one.  Trevor May pitched a perfect inning, striking out two.  Michael Tonkin struck out four in two perfect innings.

Opposition stars:  Nick Tropeano pitched 5.2 innings, giving up one run on five hits and two walks and striking out three.  Fernando Salas struck out two in two shutout innings, giving up a walk.  Albert Pujols was 1-for-5 with a two-run homer, his second.

The game:  Yunel Escobar led off with a walk and Pujols hit a two-out two-run homer in the first inning, giving the Angels a 2-0 lead.  For a while it looked like that would be enough, as the Twins managed just one single in the first three innings.  In the fourth, however, Sano and Plouffe hit back-to-back doubles to get the Twins on the board at 2-1.  The Twins got a pair of two-out singles in the sixth, but nothing came of it.  In the seventh the Twins got three two-out singles, but Eduardo Nunez was thrown out trying to score from second on the last one, so the score remained 2-1 heading to the eighth.

Sano and Plouffe opened the inning with back-to-back singles, putting men on first and third (Byron Buxton had pinch-run for Sano).  Arcia hit into a double play, but it scored a run to tie it 2-2.  The Twins loaded the bases in the ninth but did not score, sending the game to extra innings.

The pitchers were in control until the bottom of the twelfth.  Mauer led off with a walk.  Buxton bunted into a forceout, but it had the advantage of making Buxton the runner.  He stole second with two out and Arcia delivered a run-scoring single to put the Twins in the win column.

WP:  Tonkin (1-0).  LP:  Cory Rasmus (0-1).  S:  None.

Notes:  John Ryan Murphy was behind the plate in place of Kurt Suzuki.  Eduardo Nunez was at shortstop.  He and Eduardo Escobar shared the position, with Escobar playing more games there (71-51), but Jorge Polanco took over the position in August.

Oswaldo Arcia was in left in place of Eddie Rosario.  Rosario was planned to be the regular left fielder, but he missed time due to injury and also filled in at center, as he did in this game, due to the ineffectiveness at bat of Buxton,   Robbie Grossman actually spent the most time in left field, 75 games to 57 for Rosario.

Sano was in right field.  You probably remember the brilliant plan of the Twins' brain trust to put him out there regularly.  Plouffe was the incumbent third baseman and the Twins refused to either trade him or move him to another position.  I know Twins fans loved Plouffe, and I liked him, too, but he was nothing special as a ballplayer and certainly not worth forcing Sano to the outfield.  Had they traded him prior to the season they might have gotten something worth having for him--not a superstar or anything, but a useful player of some sort.  As it happened, he had a mediocre season for a terrible team, he became a free agent after the season, and the Twins got nothing for him.  Thank you, Terry Ryan.  Max Kepler would eventually take over in right field.

I always love the extreme batting averages you get early in the season.  Nunez was batting .556--he would finish at 2.96.  Mauer was batting .372--he would finish at .261.  Plouffe was batting .302--he would finish at .260.  On the low end, Murphy was batting .056--he would finish at .146.  Rosario was batting .146--he would finish at .269.  Buxton was batting .154--he would finish at .225.  Brian Dozier was batting .167--he would finish at .268.  ByungHo Park was also batting .167--he would finish at .191.  Sano was batting .179--he would finish at .236.  The Twins batted .251 as a team, eleventh in the league.  Boston led at .282, fifteen points higher than second-place Detroit.

Dozier led the team with 42 home runs.  Sano was second with 25.  Remarkably, the Twins had eleven players with double-digit home runs:  Kepler 17, Plouffe 12, Park 12, Nunez 12, Mauer 11, Grossman 11, Buxton 10, Rosario 10, and Kennys Vargas 10.  The Twins hit 200 home runs, which was eighth in the league.  Baltimore led with 253, thirty more than second-place Seattle.

Ervin Santana was the ace of the staff despite a 7-11 record, as he posted an ERA of 3.38 and a WHIP of 1.22.  The rest of the rotation was, well, not good:  Tyler Duffey, 9-12, 6.43, Gibson, 6-11, 5.07, Ricky Nolasco, 4-8, 5.13, Jose Berrios, 3-7, 8.02, Tommy Milone, 3-5, 5.71, Hector Santiago, 3-6, 5.58, and Phil Hughes, 1-7, 5.95.  They weren't all in the rotation at the same time, obviously, but I don't have the time or, frankly, the interest to figure out all the comings and goings of the rotation that year.  Other than Santana it was pretty much garbage in, garbage out.

They did have a few decent pitchers in the bullpen, at least.  Brandon Kintzler had 17 saves and posted an ERA of 3.15.  Ryan Pressly was 6-7, 3.70 with a save.  Taylor Rogers was 3-1, 3.96.  On the other hand, Kevin Jepsen, who was supposed to be the closer, went 2-5, 6.16.  He did get seven saves.

The Twins were dead last in the league in ERA at 5.08, well behind the next worst team (Oakland, 4.51).  They were also dead last in WHIP at 1.45, again well behind the next worst team (Los Angeles, 1.39).

It's amazing how much a team's personnel changes in four years.  Granted, this was a terrible team, so there should have been lots of changes.  But of the seventeen players the Twins used in this game (six pitchers, eleven position players), only four remain with the team:  Sano, Buxton, Rosario, and May.

There were two future Twins who played for the Angels:  C. J. Cron and Mike Morin.

You may recall that the Twins opened with nine losses, then won their next four.  This was the third of the four wins.  It's rather remarkable that random.org got us a win out of this team.

Record:  The Twins were 3-9, in fifth (last) place in the American League Central, already five games behind Chicago.  They would finish 59-103, in fifth place, 35.5 games behind Cleveland.

The Angels were 5-7, tied for third in the American League West, 1.5 games ahead of Texas.  They would finish 74-88, in fourth place, 21 games behind Texas.

Random record:  The Twins are 54-49 in Random Rewind games.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–July 13

Tom York (1850)
George Bradley (1852)
Stan Coveleski (1889)
Lee Handley (1913)
Eliot Asinof (1919)
Fritz Dorish (1921)
Ruben Gomez (1927)
Daryl Spencer (1928)
Don Pavletich (1938)
Jack Aker (1940)
Buzz Stephen (1944)
Jerry Terrell (1946)
Bill Caudill (1956)
Mark Brown (1959)
Mike Fitzgerald (1960)
Pat Rapp (1967)
Ryan Ludwick (1978)
Shin-Soo Choo (1982)
Yadier Molina (1982)
Tyler Skaggs (1991)

Author Eliot Asinof played two seasons in the minor leagues.  He has written several books on baseball, most notably "Eight Men Out".

We would also like to wish a happy birthday to uncleWalt’s oldest child.

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