Tag Archives: banged up team

Keeping Track

Random Rewind: 1989, Game One Hundred Two

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MINNESOTA 7, DETROIT 3 IN DETROIT (GAME 2 OF DOUBLEHEADER)

Date:  Friday, July 28.

Batting stars:  Johnny Moses was 3-for-5 with two doubles, a stolen base (his ninth), and two runs.  Kent Hrbek was 2-for-3 with a home run (his fourteenth), two walks, two runs, and three RBIs.  Kirby Puckett was 2-for-4 with a walk.  Vic Rodriguez was 2-for-4 with a double.

Pitching stars:  Mike Dyer pitched six innings, giving up two runs on six hits and five walks and striking out two.  Jeff Reardon pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Edwin Nunez struck out three in 2.2 scoreless innings, giving up one hit and two walks.  Dave Bergman was 2-for-3 with a walk.  Chet Lemon was 2-for-4 with a double.  Lou Whitaker was 1-for-2 with a home run (his twenty-first), two walks, and two runs.

The game:  With one out in the first, Bergman singled followed by three consecutive walks, giving the Tigers a 1-0 lead.   Lemon's RBI single made it 2-0 after one.  Detroit got a pair of two-out walks in the second, but could not add to their lead.

Hrbek got the Twins on the board in the fourth with a home run.  In the fifth, Brian Harper reached on an error to start the inning and went to third on a one-out single by Rodriguez.  Al Newman's sacrifice fly tied the score.  Moses doubled and Puckett had an RBI single.  A wild pitch plated another run and the Twins had a 4-2 lead.

The Twins put men on second and third in the fifth but did not score.  They scored in the sixth, though.  Moses led off with a double and Puckett walked.  Hrbek hit a two-run double to make it 6-2.  Carmelo Castillo  was hit by a pitch.  A productive out put men on second and third, Harper was intentionally walked, and another wild pitch gave the Twins a 7-2 lead.

Lou Whitaker homered leading off the seventh to make it 7-3.  The Tigers had only one hit after that, however, and the game went to the Twins.

WP:  Dyer (1-2).  LP:  Jeff Robinson (1-2).  S:  None.

Notes:  Newman was at second base in place of Wally Backman, who was out with an injury.  Moses was in left field in place of Dan Gladden, who was out with an injury.  It looks like Castillo and Randy Bush platooned in right field, but both played in this game, with Castillo in right field and Bush at DH.  The main DHs that year were Jim Dwyer and Gene Larkin.  Rodriguez was at third base in place of Gary Gaetti, who was given the second game of the doubleheader off.

Puckett was the leading Twins batter at .345.  He would finish leading the league in batting at .339.  Harper was batting .310 in his first season as a regular (at age twenty-nine).  He would finish at .325.  Doug Baker, who came in to play second base in place of Newman in the eighth, had only thirty-three at-bats, but was batting .333.  He would finish at .295 in seventy-eight at-bats.  It was the only decent batting season he had, and nothing in his record suggests he could have sustained it had he been given more of an opportunity.

Dyer was twenty-two years old at this time, and while he got by in this game he was clearly not ready for the majors, going 4-7, 4.82, 1.56 WHIP.  Unfortunately for him, he never would be.  He was able to get two full seasons in the majors as a reliever, 1995 with Pittsburgh and 1996 with Montreal.  In those years, he went 9-10, 4.37, 1.49 WHIP.

He's on the birthday list and I've done his bio, but it still came as a surprise to me that the Twins once had a player named Vic Rodriguez.

Record:  The Twins were 50-52, in fifth place in the American League West, 12.5 games behind California.  They would finish 80-82, in fifth place, nineteen games behind Oakland.

The Tigers were 35-66, in seventh (last) place in the American League East, 19.5 games behind Baltimore.  They would finish 59-103, in seventh place, thirty games behind Baltimore.

Keeping Track

Random Rewind: 2008, Game Sixty-five

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CLEVELAND 1, MINNESOTA 0 IN CLEVELAND

Date:  Tuesday, June 10.

Batting stars:  None.

Pitching stars:  Scott Baker pitched seven innings, giving up one run on eight hits and one walk and striking out one.  Matt Guerrier pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  C. C. Sabathia pitched a complete game shutout, giving up five hits and no walks and striking out five.  David Dellucci was 2-for-3.  Ryan Garko was 2-for-4.

The game:  The Twins opened the game with two singles, but the rally fizzled when Carlos Gomez was doubled off second base when a long fly by Justin Morneau was caught.  The Indians took advantage of it, scoring in the bottom of the first when Ben Francisco hit a one-out double and Garko delivered a two-out single.

And that was it for the scoring.  The Twins never really got a threat going after that.  They got three more singles, but no runner got past first base.  They had no extra-base hits and did not draw any walks.  It was 1-0 after one inning, and it was 1-0 at the end of the game.

WP:  Sabathia (4-8).  LP:  Baker (2-1).  S:  None.

Notes:  Michael Cuddyer was in right field.  Denard Span, who was a rookie that year, is listed as the regular right fielder, but he didn't really take over the job until Cuddyer was injured in late June.  The injury essentially ended Cuddyer's season, although he made a handful of appearances in September.

Mike Redmond was the DH in this game.  Craig Monroe started the season as the DH, but he was found wanting Jason Kubel became the more-or-less full time designated hitter.

Brendan Harris was at shortstop.  Adam Everett was supposed to be the regular shortstop, but he missed much of the season due to injuries.  Harris and Nick Punto pretty much shared the position after that.

Matt Macri was at third base.  This was another instance of a failed plan.  Mike Lamb was supposed to be the third baseman.  When that didn't work, Brian Buscher became the more-or-less regular at the position.

This was Macri's only season in the majors, and he got only thirty-four at bats.  He made the most of them, batting .324/.361/.441.  There's nothing in his record that suggests he could've sustained anything near that, but he still has a lifetime average of .324, and that's pretty good.

Other than Macri, Alexi Casilla was the leading batter on the team at .330.  He would finish at .281.  It was an empty .281, as his OPS was .707.  That was the second-highest OPS of his career--he was at .726 in 2010.

Joe Mauer was batting .327.  His average was sustainable, as he finished the season at .328 and led the league in batting.

Mike Redmond was batting .311.  He would finish at .287.

This was the year the Twins lost game 163 to Chicago.  When you look at the names listed above, it's remarkable that they came that close to winning the division, although it may be more due to the weakness of the division than anything else.  Still, it's rather frustrating to think that, if they'd just made one or two moves to acquire some good players, rather than shopping in the bargain basement, they probably could've won the division easily.

Record:  The Twins were 31-34, in second place in the American League Central, six games behind Chicago.  They would finish 88-75, in second place, one game behind Chicago.

The Indians were 30-35, in third place in the American League Central, seven games behind Chicago.  They would finish 81-81, in third place, 7.5 games behind Chicago.

Keeping Track

Random Rewind: 1967, Game Sixteen

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MINNESOTA 13, NEW YORK 4 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Tuesday, May 2.

Batting stars:  Zoilo Versalles was 2-for-4 with a triple, two runs, and two RBIs.  Ron Clark was 2-for-4 with a double and three RBIs.  Cesar Tovar was 2-for-4 with a double.  Jerry Zimmerman was 2-for-4 with a walk and two runs.  Ted Uhlaender was 2-for-5 with a triple, a double, and two runs.

Pitching star:  Dean Chance pitched six innings, giving up two runs on five hits and two walks and striking out four.

Opposition star:  Tom Tresh was 2-for-3 with a two-run homer (his third) and two walks.

The game:  The Yankees put men on second and third with two out in the first but did not score.  That was the last time the Yankees were in the game.  The Twins scored six times in the first inning.  Tovar and Uhlaender started the inning with back-to-back doubles.  Versalles singled and Harmon Killebrew hit a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0.  Bob Allison had an RBI single.  With two out Clark had a run-scoring double.  Zimmerman was intentionally walked, Chance was accidentally walked to load the bases, and Tovar got his second hit of the inning, a two-run single, to make it 6-0 Twins.

It stayed 6-0 until the fifth, when New York got on the board.  John Kennedy led off with a walk and Tresh hit a two-out two-run homer to cut the margin to 6-2.  The Twins came back with three in the sixth.  Zimmerman singled and Chance reached on an error.  Tovar bunted the runners up, and with two out Versalles hit a two-run triple, followed by Killebrew's RBI double, giving the Twins a 9-2 lead.

The Twins added a run in the seventh when Andy Kosco reached on a three-base error and scored on a sacrifice fly.  In the eighth Uhlaender tripled, Frank Quilici walked, Killebrew hit a sacrifice fly, Allison walked, and Kosco and Clark had RBI singles, making the score 13-2.  The Yankees added two in the ninth.  Bill Robinson reached on an error and Dick Howser singled.  A force out put men on first and third, a wild pitch scored one, and Ray Barker's single made the final 13-4.

WP:  Chance (3-1).  LP:  Fritz Peterson (0-2).  S:  None.

Notes:  Tovar was at second base in place of rookie Rod Carew, who missed a couple of days with a minor injury.  Kosco was in right field in place of Tony Oliva, who missed a couple of weeks.  Clark was at third base in place of Rich Rollins, who missed about three weeks.  As we mentioned yesterday, Earl Battey missed much of the season due to injury, so Zimmerman was the regular catcher.

Quilici entered the game in the seventh and went to second base, with Tovar moving to short and Versalles leaving the game.  Rich Reese replaced Killebrew at first base in the ninth.

There were a couple of interesting managerial decisions.  In the first, with two out, a man on second, and the score 4-0, Zimmerman was intentionally walked to bring up Chance.  Chance was a notoriously bad batter--he only had one year in which he batted over .100, and his lifetime average was .066.  But Zimmerman was a pretty bad batter, too--his lifetime average was .204, and he was batting .133 at this time.  So yes, you were bringing up a worse batter, but it seems like if you don't have confidence that your pitcher can get a batter like Zimmerman out, you probably shouldn't be using that pitcher in the first place.

In the bottom of the sixth, the Twins led 6-2.  Zimmerman led off with a single and Chance was allowed to bat.  Maybe he was supposed to bunt--the play-by-play doesn't say that, it simply says that he reached on an error.  But Chance came out of the game to start the seventh, with Al Worthington coming in to pitch.  Maybe if the score had stayed 6-2, Chance was going to pitch the seventh, but when it went to 9-2 Sam Mele decided to give him a break and use Worthington instead.

Peterson did not get out of the first inning.  The walk to Chance was the last straw, and he was removed in favor of Jim Bouton.  Bouton then pitched the next 5.1 innings of relief.

This is the first time random.org gave us back-to-back games from the same year.  It has also given us the same opponent three times in a row.

Record:  The Twins were 6-10, in tenth (last) place in the American League, four games behind Detroit.  They would finish 91-71, tied for second, one game behind Boston.

The Yankees were 9-7, tied for second place in the American League, one game behind Detroit.  They would finish 72-90, in ninth place, twenty games behind Boston.