MINNESOTA TWINS 3, ST. LOUIS CARDINALS 2 IN ST. LOUIS

Date:  Tuesday, August 1, 2023.

Batting stars:  None.  Seven Twins had exactly one hit, and they did not hit a home run.

Pitching stars:  Pablo Lopez pitched six innings, giving up one run on four hits and striking out five.  Emilio Pagan pitched a scoreless inning, walking one and striking out one.  Griffin Jax pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two hits.

Opposition stars:  Taylor Motter was 2-for-3.  Lars Nootbaar was 2-for-4.  Tyler O’Neill hit a home run, his third.

The game:  Neither team got a man past first base until the fifth, when Ryan Jeffers hit a one-out double.  Michael A. Taylor then reached on an error with two out, scoring Jeffers and giving the Twins a 1-0 lead.  The lead held up until the sixth.  Motter led off with a single, Nootbaar singled with one out, and Nolan Arenado delivered a two-out single that tied it 1-1.  

The Twins got the lead right back in the seventh.  Jorge Polanco singled and Matt Wallner hit a ground-rule double, putting men on second and third with none out.  A strikeout followed, but then Donovan Solano hit a two-run single that put the Twins ahead 3-1.  

Each team threatened in the eighth.  Byron Buxton hit a two-out double for the Twins.  For St. Louis, Nootbaar and Paul Goldschmidt hit two-out singles.  Still, it remained 3-1 until the ninth.  With one out, O’Neill hit a home run to cut the lead to 3-2.  Jhoan Duran struck out the next two batters, however, and the victory was preserved.

WP:  Pablo Lopez (6-6).

LP:  Miles Mikolas (6-7).

S:  Duran (18).

Notes:  Christian Vazquez actually caught more games than Jeffers in 2023, although they split the time fairly evenly.  Joey Gallo started at first base, with Solano pinch-hitting for him in the seventh.  Jorge Polanco started at third base, moving to second when Kyle Farmer pinch-hit for Edouard Julien in the eighth.  Matt Wallner started in left, with Willi Castro replacing him for defense in the seventh.

No one who played in this game for the Twins was batting .300.  The closest was Julien at .293.

Jax had an ERA of 2.98.  He would finish at 3.86.  Duran had an ERA of 2.81.  He would finish at 2.45.

Taylor Motter had played for the Twins briefly in 2018.  He pretty much defines “futility infielder”.  In 480 at-bats over six seasons, he “hit” .188/.258/.294.  He could play all over the infield and also had forty games in the outfield, but he didn’t really help you at any of those positions.  I assume he’s a really nice guy.

This is the first interleague game for the Random Twins.

Record:  St. Louis was 47-61, in fifth place in the NL Central, 11.5 games behind Cincinnati.  They would finish 71-91, in fifth place, 21 games behind Milwaukee.

Minnesota was 55-53, in first place in the AL Central, two games ahead of Cleveland.  They would finish 87-75, in first place, nine games ahead of Detroit.

Random Record:  The Random Twins are 11-8 (.579).

BOSTON RED SOX 5, MINNESOTA TWINS 4 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Wednesday, August 4, 1993.

Batting stars: Dave Winfield was 3-for-4 with a double and a walk.  Brian Harper was 3-for-5.  Shane Mack was 2-for-4 with a double and a walk.

Pitching stars:  Scott Erickson pitched a complete game, giving up five runs on eleven hits and a walk and striking out five.  He threw 121 pitches.

Opposition stars:  Scott Cooper was 3-for-4 with a triple, a double, two runs, and two RBIs.  Mike Greenwell was 3-for-5.  Ivan Calderon was 2-for-4 with two runs.  Aaron Sele pitched 6.2 innings, giving up three runs on nine hits and two walks and striking out two.

The game:  Boston took the lead in the second.  Calderon singled with one out and scored on Cooper’s triple.  A ground out scored Cooper, making it 2-0.  John Valentin then singled and Scott Fletcher walked, but a strikeout ended the inning.

The Twins threatened in the third.  With two out Mack walked, Chuck Knoblauch singled, and Kirby Puckett was hit by a pitch to load the bases, but a force out ended the threat.  It cost them, because the Red Sox added on in the fourth.  It again started with a Calderon single, followed by a Cooper double that made it 3-0.  The next two batters went out, but Cooper tripled home a run and Greenwell followed with an RBI single that gave Boston a 5-0 advantage.

The Twins got on the board in the bottom of the fourth.  Winfield led off with a double, got to third with one out on an infield single by Mike Pagliarulo, and scored on Gene Larkin’s sacrifice fly.  The Twins threatened in the sixth, getting one-out singles by Winfield and Harper, but nothing came of it.  In the seventh, however, Mack hit a one-out double and scored on Puckett’s two-out triple.  Kent Hrbek walked and Winfield singled, making the score 5-3.  Harper followed with another single, but Hrbek was thrown out at the plate, ending the inning.

The Twins tried to pull it out in the ninth.  Knoblauch drew a one-out walk.  With two out, Hrbek doubled, cutting the margin to 5-4.  Winfield walked, bringing up Harper, who already had three hits in the game.  But he popped up to second, and the game was over.

WP:  Aaron Sele (6-0).

LP:  Erickson (6-13).

S:  Jeff Russell (29).

Notes:  While Puckett was still primarily a center fielder, the Twins had started his transition to right, and that’s where he played in this game, with Mack in center.  Gene Larkin was in left, with Pedro Munoz on the bench.  Chip Hale pinch-hit for Pat Meares and stayed in the game at second base, with Knoblauch moving to shortstop.  It was one of six times Knoblauch would play short in 1993.

Harper was batting .314.  He would finish at .304.

Pagliarulo was in his last days as a Twin.  He would be traded on August 15 for a player to be named later, who turned out to be named Eric Schullstrom.  

It was a different time, but it’s still surprising to see someone allow five runs and pitch a complete game.  Erickson did, however, pitch very well after the fourth inning, giving up just one hit.  At one point he retired twelve consecutive batters.

Largely forgotten now, Scott Cooper was a two-time all-star.  He was traded to St. Louis early in 1995 and fell off rapidly after that.  But from 1992-1994 he batted .279/.347/.410.

The Twins went 4-for-10 with men in scoring position, but still stranded eleven.

Record:  Boston was 60-47, in second place in the AL East, two games behind Toronto.  They would finish 80-82, in fourth place, 15 games behind Toronto.  They had the worst record in the American League after this game, going 20-35.

Minnesota was 45-59, tied for sixth place with Oakland in the AL West, 13 games behind the White Sox.  They would finish 71-91, tied for fifth with California, 23 games behind the White Sox.   

Random Record:  The Random Twins are 10-8 (.556)

NEW YORK YANKEES 2, MINNESOTA TWINS 1 IN NEW YORK

Date:  Wednesday, June 10, 1970.

Batting star:  Tony Oliva was 2-for-4 with a triple.

Pitching star: Bert Blyleven pitched seven innings, giving up two runs on seven hits and two walks and striking out three.  Ron Perranoski pitched a scoreless inning, walking one and striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Thurman Munson was 2-for-3 with a double.  Horace Clarke was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer, his fourth.  Mel Stottlemyre pitched a complete game, giving up one run on four hits and a walk and striking out seven.

The game:  Neither team had more than one runner on base at a time until the fourth.  The Twins didn’t do it then, either, but they scored anyway, as Oliva led off the inning with a triple and scored on a ground out.  The Yankees took the lead in the fifth when Stottlemyre singled with two out and scored on Clarke’s two-run homer.

And that was it.  There was only one hit after the fifth inning, a bunt single by Munson in the seventh.  Other than Oliva, the Twins only once got a man past first base–Cesar Tovar hit a two-out double in the third.

WP:  Stottlemyre (6-4).

LP:  Blyleven (1-1).

S:  None.

Notes:  Rod Carew was at second.  He would be injured a couple weeks later and miss almost the entire remainder of the season.  Danny Thompson took his place at second, which was obviously a significant drop-off.  Jim Holt was in left, a position he shared with Brant Alyea in 1970.  Alyea had far superior offensive numbers, but was very streaky.  His OPS by month was 1.257, .519, 631, 1.049, .715, 1.051.  Holt, on the other had, was consistently mediocre.

Carew was batting .377.  He would finish at .366.  Oliva was batting .335.  He would finish at .325.  Harmon Killebrew was batting .313.  He would finish at .271.

This was Blyleven’s second career start.  His ERA was 1.93, but he was 1-1 due to getting a total of three runs of support over the two games.  That would set the tone for much of his career.  He would finish the season 10-9 with an ERA of 3.18.  He would pitch 164 innings despite not making his debut until June.  For comparison, Pablo Lopez led the Twins in innings pitched in 2024 with 185.1.  It was a different era.

Perranoski had an ERA of 2.11.  He would finish at 2.43.

We’ve done two games from 1970.  Oliva was 2-for-4 with a triple in both of them.  He would hit seven triples in 1970.  

This was the last of four home runs Horace Clarke would hit in 1970.  He hit a grand total of 27 in a ten-year career.

We’ve done two games from 1970, when the Twins won the division, and they lost both.  We did one game from 1998, when they were terrible, and they won.  I guess it proves the old saying that the best team loses sixty games and the worst team wins sixty games.  Unless, of course, you’re the White Sox.

Record:  The Yankees were 33-24, in second place in the AL East, 4.5 games behind Baltimore.  They would finish 93-69, in second place, 15 games behind Baltimore.

The Twins were 34-17, in first place in the AL West, 2 games ahead of California.  They would finish 98-64, in first place, 9 games ahead of Oakland.

Random Record:  The Random Twins are 10-7 (.588).