Tag Archives: blowout

Keeping Track

2003 Rewind: Game Seventy-eight

MILWAUKEE 13, MINNESOTA 1 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Friday, June 27.

Batting stars:  Jacque Jones was 2-for-3.  Doug Mientkiewicz was 2-for-4.

Pitching stars:  None.

Opposition stars:  Matt Kinney pitched a complete game, giving up one run on eight hits and one walk and striking out four.  Royce Clayton was 3-for-4 with a double and two runs.  Richie Sexson was 3-for-5 with a home run (his twenty-second), two runs, and five RBIs.  Scott Podsednik was 3-for-5 with two doubles, a walk, two runs, and two RBIs.  John Vander Wal was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer (his eighth), a double, a walk, two runs, and two RBIs.  Eddie Perez was 2-for-5 with a home run (his eighth) and two runs.  Brooks Kieschnick was 2-for-5 with a home run (his fourth) and two RBIs.  Eric Young was 2-for-5.

The game:  The Brewers didn't have one big inning, but scored two runs five times and three runs once.  It was scoreless until the rhid, when Podsednik hit a two-run double.  Kieschnick's two-run single-plus-error made it 4-0 in the fourth.  Vander Wal hit a two-run homer in the fifth to make it 6-0.

The Twins got on the board in the sixth when Corey Koskie and Torii Hunter doubled.  But Sexson hit a three-run homer in the seventh to bring the score to 9-1.  Sexson struck again in the eighth, with a two-run single that increased the lead to 11-1.  Kieschnick and Perez hit back-to-back homers in the ninth to make it 13-1.

WP:  Kinney (6-6).  LP:  Kyle Lohse (6-6).  S:  None.

Notes:  Denny Hocking was at second base in place of Luis Rivas.  Morneau was the DH.

With a blowout, the Twins made several substitutions.  Tom Prince replaced A. J. Pierzynski behind the plate in the eighth.  Lew Ford replaced Hunter in center field in the eighth.  Bobby Kielty pinch-hit for Jones in the eighth and remained in the game in right field, with Dustan Mohr moving to left.  Matthew LeCroy pinch-hit for Koskie in the eighth and went to first base, with Mientkiewicz moving to third.

Ford was 0-for-1 and was batting .364.  Koskie was 1-for-3 and was batting .311.  Mientkiewicz was batting .303.  Jones was batting .302.

Johan Santana allowed three runs in 1.1 innings to raise his ERA to 2.51.

Lohse pitched five innings, allowing six runs (five earned) on eight hits and a walk and striking out four.

Kinney, of course, is an ex-Twin.  This was the only time he had a full year as a member of a starting rotation.  He was 10-13, 5.19, 1.47 WHIP.  He was too much for the Twins on this day, though.  As with Mark Buehrle yesterday, the Twins had beaten him up the last time they faced him (6.1 innings, 6 runs), but they couldn't do it a second time.  They would not face him again this season.

Record:  The Twins were 41-37, in second place in the American League Central, two games behind Kansas City.

2011 Twins Game Recaps, View from the Ballpark

2011 Game 102: Wasted Opportunities

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"
"Like a tire fire in your mouth." - photo by Flickr user DR000

I suppose I could do the usual thing and tell you which batters and pitchers had the highest and lowest WPA for the game, but seriously, why should I bother? Last night was beyond laughably bad for several reasons. Joe Mauer inexplicably played the entire game despite not exactly being a McGriff-like model of durability. That seems to be to be a case of serious managerial malpractice. Did the reporters present at the postgame ask a single question about this decision? Not as far as I can tell from the articles available as I write this (0100 Tuesday). I could grouch about Mauer playing or mediocre journalism more, but I'm guessing the number of eyes that care to revisit last night by reading this are already going to be pretty low.

Moving along, the storyline for last night (apart from being blown out of the water) is Cuddyer's turn as a pitcher. According to the AP, this was the first time a position player took the hill for the Twins since John Moses pitched an inning in relief. That was 31 July 1990, in a 13-2 loss to the California Angels. Moses actually pitched twice in 1990, each time in a loss charged to Allan Anderson, throwing an inning in each appearance. The other was in a 13-1 loss to the Red Sox on 19 May, when the Sawk hung 5 runs on Anderson before he was given the hook after 0.2 IP.  In all, five position players have now pitched for the Twins: Julio Becquer (10 Sept 1961), César Tovar (more on him in a minute), Dan Gladden (27 June 1988 and 7 May 1989, both Fred Toliver losses), John Moses, and now Cuddyer.

Anyway, Cuddy's now played every position on the diamond except shortstop and catcher. The question is, why didn't he play all nine last night? If you believe (or have resigned yourself to the fact that) the Twins will not trade Cuddyer at the deadline because they're overly fond of him, then there was absolutely no reason for him to not become the second Twin to have played all nine positions in a game. I suppose one could make the argument that doing so would simply remind Twins fans of this game when it comes up in bar trivia 30 years from now, but quite honestly, that's not good enough. In a game where history has significant weight, Ron Gardenhire and the coaching staff squandered a golden opportunity for Cuddyer to join (in order) Bert Campaneris, César Tovar, Scott Shelton, and Shane Halter as the only players in baseball history to perform that feat. I don't think there's any shame in that. I would have kept watching, no matter how bad the score got, simply to see Cuddyer pull it off.

A few words about pulling it off, then. If you don't already know, Campaneris was the first player to pull it off, back in 1965. Tovar became the second three years later, on 22 September 1968. When he took the mound in the first inning of that game, do you know who stepped in to face Tovar? That's right - Bert Campaneris. (Campy fouled out to Ron Clark at third base.) Tovar recorded one strikeout - the always-prolific Reggie Jackson.  In the second Tovar was behind the plate, and you can guess what his box score reads from there: P-C-1B-2B-SS-3B-LF-CF-RF. Tom Hall, who came on to pitch the second, got the win. Rod Carew played short for an inning. Graig Nettles manned center field for four innings. If Graig Nettles could play center for four innings, there's no reason the Twins couldn't have let Cuddyer play short, catcher, and everywhere else last night. It would have given Twins fans an opportunity to fondly remember César Tovar, a player who deserves more remembrance than he gets, and would allow Cuddy to check off an item or two more on his bucket list. With a game as bad as last night's was, and it was far, far worse than hitting Malört out of the bottle like a cowboy, the club has to give something back to the fans who stick around until the bitter end, something to deaden that throw-up-in-the-mouth taste. Cuddy playing all nine would have done it. Instead we got nine innings of suck and needless risk to the franchise player (yeah, I'm not over that).

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Here's this week's View from the Ballpark:

photo by The WGOM's very own Rhubarb_Runner

Remember, no embiggening.

2011 Twins Game Recaps, View from the Ballpark

2011 Game 77: Dodgers 15, Twins 0

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Weather: 74°F, partly cloudy
Wind: 15 mph
Attendance: 39,487
Time: 3:05

Twins' record: 32-45 (last in AL Central, 10.0 GB)
Fangraphs boxscore | MLB Game Wrap

"Highlights":

  • Highest WPA, hitter: Nishioka .026 (2-3, SO) | Highest WPA, pitcher: 3 tied at .000 (3.0 IP, 7 H, 2 HR, 5 ER, 2 BB, SO)
  • The Dodgers have one of the nicest road uniforms in baseball, and looked great when matched with the Twins' throwbacks.

Lowlights:

  • Lowest WPA, hitter: Revere, -.076 (0-4, 2 GIDP) | Lowest WPA, pitcher: Blackburn, -.290 (4.1 IP, 12 H, 7 ER, BB, SO)
  • Everything.

For the last few weekends I've been traveling between the People's Republic and western Wisconsin, working on putting Pops' things in order and attending family functions. Last Friday was no different, other than a buddy of mine who lives in Madison asked if he could get a ride to Winona so he could bring his restored Chevy truck out of storage for the summer. The plan was to leave around noon, after he finished up installing a window for a client.

Well, the day before I had a particularly vindictive migraine. It was bad enough I thought I was having olfactory hallucinations; specifically, I thought I could smell a gas leak in the neighborhood. I even called up the gas company to come out and check. Now, I'm not actually paranoid - the complete gas service was replaced in our neighborhood just a few weeks ago, and there were front-end loaders working out in the street Thursday, making me suspect something had been severed. The guy from the gas company came out and checked the new connection on each house on my street, the mains, and anything else that possibly could leak, all to no avail. I apologized, of course, but I could still smell a decidedly off odor.

Ten minutes before I left on Friday I figured out what I was smelling. I opened the door to a storage area on the second floor. Down in the corner, where I had laid it out months before, was a mouse trap. I've been checking that trap near-religiously, so the mouse that I caught couldn't have been there any earlier than Tuesday evening. But, given that it's summer (and, thanks to a stupid call during renovation, our central HVAC doesn't go upstairs which is why we want a new unit from Kellerman Heating & Cooling), the mouse didn't take long to make things smell pretty ripe. Okay, really ripe.

Mrs. Hayes is a confirmed animal lover, so even though I would be late to my buddy's place, I absolutely had to dispose of the body. First order of business was to remove the corpse from the premises while simultaneously curbing my urge to vomit. The little bugger had soiled himself, I guess. Next was to clean up the greasy mark he left behind on the floor. Armed with a Lysol wipe, a can of Lysol, and enough intestinal fortitude not to make a bigger mess myself, I wiped up the, erm, leavings, washed my hands, and got out the door. I was worried the potency of that smell would still be there when I got back today, but, mercifully, it's gone.

Nonetheless, I am armed with empirical evidence. The egg the Twins laid laid last night smells worse than a mouse corpse laying in an attic for a few days in the summer heat. As a matter of fact, given the choice between the two, I'd rather relive cleaning up that mouse and his leavings than re-experience the 2011 Twins season to date. My mind is already wandering toward 2012. Is yours?

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Here's this week's View from the Ballpark:

photo by Flickr user Telstar Logistics

photo by Flickr user Telstar Logistics

Remember, no embiggening.