Category Archives: Minnesota Twins

2011 Twins Game Recaps, Minnesota Twins, MLB

Game 20: Twins 10, Indians 3

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MINNEAPOLIS -- A freak incident occurred at Target Field on Saturday afternoon. Something happened that no one could remember happening before.

A second digit went up under the "runs" header on the scoreboard.

"I didn't know it could do that," said John Henry "Fred" Johnson, the ballpark's head of scoreboard operations.

The incident occurred after the Minnesota Twins' Danny Valencia hit a ball over the fence and into the upper deck, scattering several stunned patrons. Many fans in the ballpark were unsure of what just happened and assumed it had been a mistake. In fact, Valencia just jogged around the bases and headed back to home. Some believed Valencia was just going back to the plate to continue his at-bat as a sort of "do-over."

However, Valencia only touched home plate and continued back to the dugout. The confusion may have led to the incident, as the second digit went up on the scoreboard after Valencia touched home.

"We were scrambling, trying to figure out what went wrong," Johnson said, "but the official scorekeeper told us to leave it alone. So, we did."

The Indians didn't seem to notice, as they didn't make any complaints and the inning continued. The Twins appeared to enjoy it as they seemed downright giddy in the dugout.

Valencia refused to apologize afterward.

"I'm going to do that every chance I get," he said. "We need to see that second digit again."

History, Minnesota Twins

April 20, 1998: Random Day in Twins History

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I used a random number generator to pick a season from the past with the idea that I would quickly highlight the Twins history that occurred today in that year.  The generator sent me to the year 1998.

Oakland 3, Twins 2 - BR boxscore

In front of just 5,000 people (many entering complements of Eddie Guardado), the Twins lost 3-2 to the Oakland A’s in Oakland.  Brad Radke pitched seven strong innings (and threw 122 pitches – more than Gardy will likely let any Twin throw this entire season).  The loan run scored against Radke occurred on a delayed double-steal (although Kurt Abbott was not credited with a steal of home for some reason, he scored after Sandfrog got himself caught in a rundown after starting to second base on a pitch).

LEN3, perhaps listening to someone else in the press box reported that “Radke was entertaining as well as an enigma.  His pitches were good, but he left many of them up in the zone” (emphasis added).

After Radke departed, Greg Swindell entered and allowed a two-out, two-run homerun to rookie Ben Grieve in the bottom of the eighth to blow the game.

Offensively, the Twins managed just two runs despite fourteen baserunners because a Pat Meares double (already his eighth of the season) was the team's only extra base hit.  “We had a couple of chances to add on some runs [Monday], but we didn't and it came back to haunt us,” explained Tom Kelly in a statement exactly the same as one that a Tom Kelly Random Quote Generator would have created.

The loss dropped the team’s record to 7-11 despite the Twins having outscored their opponents 109-85 to that point.

Other Twins notes: Minnesota Attorney General Skip Humphrey was granted permission to proceed with an investigation of possible antitrust violations by Major League Baseball.  Humphrey’s ultimate motive was to force the Twins to open their books in order to determine whether the team’s threat to relocate to North Carolina was plausible.  He clarified that he had not yet discovered any violation of the law, but he was simply requesting documents to determine if teams (businesses) were acting in concert in order to pressure cities to fund stadiums.  Ramsey County Judge Margaret Marrinan explained in her ruling that the United States Supreme Court had drastically narrowed Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption in the 1972 Curt Flood case.

Oh, and WASTE Ron Coomer missed the game because he broke his right, big toe the previous day after fouling a pitch off his foot.  He was back in the lineup the following day.

What did you think?  Should I try to work this into an occasional feature?