Monthly Archives: October 2020

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–October 6

Pop Snyder (1854)
Jerry Grote (1942)
Gene Clines (1946)
Gary Gentry (1946)
Victor Bernal (1953)
Alfredo Griffin (1957)
Oil Can Boyd (1959)
Rich Yett (1962)
Ruben Sierra (1965)
Archi Cianfrocco (1966)
Darren Oliver (1970)
Freddy Garcia (1976)
Andrew Albers (1985)

Right-hander Victor Bernal was drafted by the Twins in the 1975 January draft, but the pick was voided. He went on to be chosen by San Diego in the June draft of 1975 and played in fifteen games for the Padres in 1977.

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Keeping Track

2003 Rewind: Game Four

TORONTO 7, MINNESOTA 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Friday, April 4.

Batting stars:  Doug Mientkiewicz was 2-for-3 with a home run, a double, a walk, and two runs.  Bobby Kielty was 1-for-3 with a walk.

Pitching stars:  Johan Santana struck out two in a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.  Mike Fetters pitched a perfect inning.

Opposition stars:  Tanyon Sturtze pitched 6.2 innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on four hits and two walks and struck out one.  Josh Phelps was 2-for-3 with a home run and a walk.  Vernon Wells was 2-for-4 with two home runs and four RBIs.  Frank Catalanotto was 2-for-5 with a home run.  Jeff Tam pitched two shutout innings, giving up a hit.

The game:  The Twins missed a chance in the first.  Jacque Jones led off with a single, was bunted to second, and stole third with one out.  Torii Hunter then hit back to the pitcher and Jones was thrown out at the plate, presumably on a contact play.  It cost them, because Phelps led off the second with a home run, putting the Blue Jays up 1-0.  It went to 2-0 in the second, as Toronto scored on singles by Carlos Delgado and Phelps and an error.

The Twins got on the board in the fifth.  Mientkiewicz walked and went to second on a ground out.  Luis Rivas then reached on an error and Mientkiewicz scored, cutting the lead to 2-1.  The Blue Jays responded immediately, with Catalanotto and Wells leading off the sixth with back-to-back homers to give Toronto a 4-1 lead.

The Blue Jays put it out of reach in the seventh.  Mike Bordick and Shannon Stewart walked and Wells hit a two-out three-run homer, putting Toronto up 7-1.  Mientkiewicz homered leading off the eighth, but the Twins never threatened to get back into the game.

WP:  Sturtze (1-0).  LP:  Rick Reed (0-1).  S:  None.

Notes:  Michael Cuddyer was at third base in place of Corey Koskie.  Bobby Kielty was in right field.

The Twins did not make any lineup substitutions.

Reed pitched pretty well for five innings, but the back-to-back homers gave him a line of six innings, four runs, six hits, one walk, and two strikeouts.   The big seventh came off Tony Fiore.  Fiore had pitched well for the Twins in 2002, but would not repeat that in 2003.

I remembered Vernon Wells as a Twins killer.  He wasn't, really.  He did fine against them, but not that much differently from the way he hit against everyone.  Against the Twins he batted .290/.321/.446, for an OPS of .767.  For his career, he batted .270/.319/.459, for an OPS of .778.

Tanyon Sturtze pitched a long time for someone who wasn't very good.  He had a good game here, obviously.  Maybe he was one of those guys who, in Bill James' phrase, pitched well just often enough to fool people into pitching him some more.  He was in the majors for parts of twelve seasons and went 40-44, 5.19, 1.53 WHIP in 797 innings.  He appeared in 272 games, starting 84 of them.  Excluding "seasons" in which he pitched fewer than ten innings, his lowest season ERA was 4.42.  He had only three seasons in which he had an ERA under five.  His numbers in AAA were 38-30, 4.71, 1.49 WHIP, so it's not like he just couldn't make the jump to the bigs.  In fact, his numbers in AA are 13-18, 4.33, 1.49 WHIP.  Even in high-A, he had an ERA of 3.84, but a WHIP of 1.45.  I've written this so many times you're probably tired of reading it, but it just frustrates me that guys like this get chance after chance after chance, long after they've proven they're never going to be good enough, while other guys put up great numbers in the high minors and get a cursory look or none at all.  I guess nobody said baseball, or life itself, was going to be fair.

Despite my hopes, the Twins would not go 162-0 in 2003.

Record:  The Twins were 3-1, in second place in the American League Central, one game behind Kansas City.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–October 5

Henry Chadwick (1824)
John Reilly (1858)
Claude Ritchey (1873)
Jim Bagby (1889)
Sam West (1904)
Si Johnson (1906)
Andy Kosco (1941)
Dan Fife (1949)
Onix Concepcion (1957)
Randy Bush (1958)
Rey Sanchez (1965)
Brandon Puffer (1975)
Zack Littell (1995)

Henry Chadwick is often considered the father of baseball.  He wrote the first rule book, created the box score, and was the first to keep track of singles, doubles, triples, and home runs.

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Keeping Track

2003 Rewind: Game Three

MINNESOTA 3, DETROIT 0 IN DETROIT

Date:  Thursday, April 3.

Batting stars:  Corey Koskie was 2-for-4 with a triple and a double.  A. J. Pierzynski was 1-for-3 with a double and a walk.

Pitching stars:  Kyle Lohse pitched eight shutout innings, giving up two hits and no walks and striking out five.  Eddie Guardado pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit and striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Adam Bernero pitched seven innings, giving up two runs on five hits and one walk and striking out one.  Omar Infante was 1-for-3 with a double.

The game:  With one out in the first inning Cristian Guzman tripled and scored on a ground out to give the Twins a 1-0 lead.  With two out in the fourth, Koskie tripled and scored on a Bobby Kielty single.

Meanwhile, the Tigers did not have a baserunner for the first five innings.  The streak ended with one out in the sixth when Infante doubled, but he did not advance past second.  They got another hit in the seventh when Dmitri Young got a one-out single.

The Twins added a run in the eighth when Jacque Jones and Torii Hunter walked, Jones stole third, and Koskie hit into a force out to bring home a run.  Shane Halter hit a two-out single in the ninth and stole second (one suspects hometown scoring in giving him a stolen base rather than defensive indifference), but Bobby Higginson flied out to end the game.

WP:  Lohse (1-0).  LP:  Bernero (0-1).  S:  Guardado (1).

Notes:  Chris Gomez was at second base in place of Luis Rivas.  Kielty was the DH.  He had the second-most games at DH on the team, behind Matthew LeCroy.

Denny Hocking pinch-ran for Koskie in the eighth and remained in the game at third base.

Small sample size stats are fun.  Koskie was batting .571 with an OPS of 1.143.  Pierzynski was batting .400 with an OPS of 1.335.  Hocking was batting .333 with an OPS of 1.000.

As with Joe Mays, Kyle Lohse could not sustain the success he had in this first game.  By game scores, this would be the best game he would pitch all season, narrowly beating out a complete game shutout against Tampa Bay in May.

This was also one of the best games Adam Bernero would pitch all season, even if he didn't get rewarded for it.  For the season he would go 1-14 with a 5.87 ERA.  He would also be traded to Colorado for Ben Petrick.  Overall, he pitched in parts of seven major league seasons and never had a good one.  His career record was 11-27, 5.91, 1.50 WHIP in 376 innings.  He appeared in 150 games, starting 37 of them.  He was pretty good in AAA--25-25, 3.39, 1.27--which is probably why he kept getting chances.  But for whatever reason, he simply could not make the jump to the majors.

We probably got excited about the Twins sweeping this opening series, especially with the Twins pitchers giving Detroit just two runs.  We could not have realized just how awful the Tigers would turn out to be.  On the other hand, Detroit fans probably realized very quickly that getting swept at home, and being outscored 14-2, was a sign that this was going to be a long season.

Record:  The Twins were 3-0, tied for first place in the American League Central with Kansas City.