MINNESOTA TWINS 6, MILWAUKEE BREWERS 1 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Saturday, September 20, 1997.

Batting stars:  Pat Meares was 2-for-3 with a home run (his tenth) and a walk.  Chuck Knoblauch was 2-for-3 with a walk and two runs.  Brent Brede was 2-for-3 with two walks.

Pitching star:  LaTroy Hawkins pitched six innings, giving up one run on two hits and five walks and striking out four.  Mike Trombley struck out two in a perfect inning.  Greg Swindell struck out two and walked one in two shutout innings.

Opposition star:  Cal Eldred pitched six innings, giving up two runs on six hits and six walks and striking out two.

The game:  The Twins scored in the first, as Knoblauch walked, went to third on a Brede single, and scored on Ron Coomer’s sacrifice fly.  They loaded the bases with one out in the second on three singles, but a line drive double play took them out of the inning.  Meares homered in the fourth to make it 2-0, although after that the Twins once again loaded the bases and did not score.

Milwaukee did not get a hit through the first five innings, although they did draw four walks.  In the sixth, however, Jeff Cirillo hit a one-out ground rule double and scored on a Julio Franco single, cutting the margin to 2-1.  

The Twins drew two walks in the sixth, but did not score.  But with one out in the seventh, Matt Lawton doubled, Marty Cordova tripled, and Damian Miller hit a sacrifice fly, increasing the lead to 4-1.  They put it away in the eighth.  Knoblauch and Brede led off the inning with singles.  An error brought home one run and Coomer hit an RBI single for another.  The score was 6-1, and that’s where it stayed.  The two hits in the sixth were the only hits the Brewers had.

WP:  LaTroy Hawkins (6-11).

LP:  Cal Eldred (13-14).

S:  Greg Swindell (1).

Notes:  Damian Miller was behind the plate in place of Terry Steinbach.  Brent Brede was at first base in place of Scott Stahoviak and Greg Colbrunn, who saw most of the first base action.

Paul Molitor was batting .304.  He would finish at .305.

Jeff Cirillo was 1-for-3 with a walk.  He would play for the Twins in 2007.  Darrin Jackson was 0-for-4.  He had started the 1997 season with the Twins, traded at the August deadline for the immortal Mick Fieldbinder.  Mike Fetters pitched the eighth inning, giving up two runs on three hits.  He would pitch for the Twins briefly in 2003.

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

There were twelve walks in the game, six by each team.  I don’t know if home plate umpire Jim Evans had a small strike zone or if the pitchers just had trouble finding home plate.

Marty Cordova hit eighteen triples in his career.  His season high was four, set in 1995 and tied in 1997.

By game scores, LaTroy Hawkins actually had two games better than this in 1997:  August 30 against Cincinnati (7 IP, 1R, 6H, 1W, 4K) and June 17 against Pittsburgh (7 IP, 1R, 3H, 2W, 2K).  He also did fairly well in his other interleague game, against St. Louis.

Damian Miller played only briefly for the Twins, but went on to have an eleven-year major league career.  He played for Arizona, Oakland, the Cubs, and Milwaukee.

Record:  Milwaukee was 75-77, in third place in the AL Central, 7.5 games behind Cleveland.  They would finish 78-83, in third place, 8 games behind Cleveland.

The Twins were 62-91, in fifth (last) place in the AL Central, 21 games behind Cleveland.  They would finish 67-94, in fourth place, 18.5 games behind Cleveland.

Random Record:  The Random Twins are 23-18 (.561)

CLEVELAND INDIANS 4, MINNESOTA TWINS 3 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Saturday, July 9, 1994.

Batting stars:  Chip Hale was 2-for-4 with a double.  Kent Hrbek was 2-for-4.  Chuck Knoblauch was 2-for-5 with a triple, a double, and two runs.

Pitching stars:  Dave Stevens pitched 2.2 scoreless innings, giving up two hits and a walk.  Mark Guthrie pitchd 1.1 scoreless innings, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Alvaro Espinoza was 2-for-4.  Omar Vizquel was 2-for-5.  Eddie Murray hit a home run, his thirteenth.

The game:  Each team scored once in the first.  For Cleveland, Kenny Lofton singled, stole second and third, and scored on a squeeze bunt by Albert Belle, which must have caught everyone by surprise.  For the Twins, Chuck Knoblauch led off with a triple and scored on a ground out.  The Indians took the lead 2-1 in the second when Candy Maldonado doubled and scored on a Vizquel single.

The Twins tied it in the fourth.  Kirby Puckett was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning.  Hrbek followed with a single, then came walks to Shane Mack and Scott Leius to force in a run.  The bases were still loaded with none out, but the Twins could do more, and the score was tied 2-2.  The tie did not last long.  In the fifth Carlos Baerga singled with one out and Murray hit a two-out two-run single, making it 4-2 Cleveland.

The Twins got one back in the bottom of the fifth on doubles by Knoblauch and Puckett, but that was as close as they would come.  They got a man to second in the sixth, when Hale hit a one-out double, and in the eighth, when Hrbek singled and went to second on Hale’s two-out single, but they could not score again.  Their last four men went out and the victory went to Cleveland.

WP:  Dennis Martinez (8-4).

LP:  Jim Deshaies (4-9).

S:  Jeff Russell (13).

Notes:  Jeff Reboulet was at shortstop in place of Pat Meares.  Rich Becker was in center in place of Alex Cole.  Hale was at DH in place of Dave Winfield.

Kirby Puckett was batting .321.  He would finish at .317.  Chuck Knoblauch was batting .320.  He would finish at .312.  Shane Mack was batting .314.  He would finish at .333.

Alvaro Espinoza played for the Twins from 1984-1986.  Paul Sorrento pinch-hit and was 0-for-1.  He played for the Twins from 1989-1991.

The Twins pitching was, to put it bluntly, awful in 1994.  They scored 5.26 runs per game, but allowed 6.09.  Granted it was 1994, and scoring was up, but the average was 4.92.  We went through this once before, but the rotation was Kevin Tapani (4.62 ERA), Scott Erickson (5.44), Jim Deshaies (7.39), Pat Mahomes (4.73), and Carlos Pulido (5.98).  I didn’t check the AAA roster, but the Twins must have thought they didn’t have any better options, because those five pitchers made all but six of the team’s starts.  The primary relief pitchers did not provide much relief:  Rick Aguilera (3.63), Carl Willis (5.92), Mark Guthrie (6.14), Mike Trombley (6.33), Larry Casian (7.08), and Dave Stevens (6.80).  Other than Aguilera, Tom Kelly could just as well have pulled names out of a hat when he went to the bullpen.

Albert Belle had four sacrifice bunts in his career.  This was the last one.

I think of Eddie Murray as a Baltimore Oriole, and of course that is where he had his best years.  But he played for nine years after leaving the Orioles:  three with the Dodgers, two with the Mets, two and a half with Cleveland, a half season back with Baltimore, and a final season split between Anaheim and the Dodgers.

The 1994 season would come to a premature end about a month later due to a labor-related work stoppage.

Record:  Cleveland was 50-33, in first place by percentage points over Chicago.  They would finish 66-47, in second place, one game behind Chicago.

The Twins were 42-43, in fourth place, nine games behind Cleveland.  They would finish 53-60., in fourth place, fourteen games behind Chicago.

Random Record:  The Random Twins are 22-17 (.564).

CALIFORNIA ANGELS 5, MINNESOTA TWINS 2 IN CALIFORNIA

Date:  Saturday, May 4, 1996.

Batting star:  Greg Myers was 2-for-4 with a home run (his first), a double, and two runs.

Pitching stars:  None.

Opposition stars:  Chili Davis was 2-for-3 with a home run (his seventh), a double, a walk, and three runs.  Tim Wallach was 2-for-4 with two RBIs.  J. T. Snow hit a home run, his second.  Garret Anderson hit a home run, his third.  Jason Grimsley pitched a complete game, giving up two runs (one earned) on three hits and three walks and striking out five.

The game:  Neither team got a hit until the bottom of the second, when Davis led off with a double.  The next two batters went out, but Wallach singled to give California a 1-0 lead.  The Twins drew two walks in the third, but did not score.  The Angels drew two walks in the fourth and they did score, as Wallach again delivered a two-out RBI single.  That was the last hit by either team until the bottom of the sixth, when Snow and Anderson hit back-to-back solo homers to put the Angels up 4-0.

The Twins got on the board in the seventh when Myers got to third on a double-plus-error and scored on a ground out.  Rich Becker doubled in the eighth but did not get past third base.  

From there, the teams traded solo homers.  Davis hit one in the bottom of the eighth and Myers hit one in the bottom of the ninth, bringing the final score to 5-2.

WP:  Jason Grimsley (2-1).

LP:  Frankie Rodriguez (2-3).

S:  None.

Notes:  Denny Hocking was in right field.  The Twins didn’t really have a regular right fielder.  Matt Lawton had the most games there (60), followed by Roberto Kelly (54) and Hocking (33).

Marty Cordova was batting .346.  He would finish at .309.  Chuck Knoblauch was batting .345.  He would finish at .341.  Paul Molitor was also batting .345.  He would also finish at .341.  Pat Meares was batting .312.  He would finish at .267.  Greg Myers was batting .309.  He would finish at .286.

Dan Naulty pitched two innings, giving up one run.  He had an ERA of 1.27.  He would finish at 3.79.

Chili Davis, as you probably know, played for the Twins from 1991-1992.

We had hopes for Frankie Rodriguez, but those hopes were mostly based on the fact that he was young.  1996 was his only season as a rotation starter, and he went 13-14, 5.05, 1.43 WHIP and struck out only 110 in 206.2 innings.  He was only twenty-three, and we hoped he would improve, but he didn’t.  In seven major league seasons, he had one in which he posted an ERA below five (4.62 in 1997).  He hung around until 2001, then was out of baseball.

The Twins batted .288 as a team in 1996.  In addition to the players listed above, Roberto Kelly batted .323 and Ron Coomer batted .296.  They hit only 118 home runs, however, with Marty Cordova leading the team with 16.  They were second in baseball in batting average, but dead last in home runs, 

And, as you would guess if you didn’t know, their pitching was not good.  Brad Radke was the only pitcher with an ERA under five (4.46).  In addition to Rodriguez, their rotation was Rich Robertson (5.12), Scott Aldred (5.09) and Rick Aguilera (5.42).  Aguilera had wanted to start, and the Twins accommodated him, but it did not go well, and the next year he would be back in the closer role.  Other pitchers given starts, none of whom had an ERA below six, were Jose Parra, Pat Mahomes, Scott Klingenbeck, Travis Miller, LaTroy Hawkins, and Dan Serafini.  The pitcher who tried to replace Aguilera as closer was Dave Stevens, who posted a 4.66 ERA and a 1.43 WHIP.

This was Jason Grimsley’s last year as a starting pitcher.  He would spend two years in the minors before resurfacing as a reliever with the Yankees.  He would continue to be part of a major league bullpen through 2006.

Record:  California was 17-12, in second place in the AL West, 1.5 games behind Texas.  They would finish 70-91, in fourth (last) place, 19.5 games behind Texas.

The Twins were 14-14, in third place in the AL Central, 5 games behind Cleveland.  They would finish 78-84, in fourth place, 21.5 games behind Cleveland.

Random Record:  The Random Twins are 22-18 (.550).