Another poor performance from Twins bats yesterday as they fall to 3-7 for the season. After 10 games Twins have a collective .199 AVG and a .581 OPS which is not going to win you a lot of games, regardless of how well the pitching staff does.
Pablo Lopez on the mound and except for a few opening day early inning jitters, he's been pretty decent this year. Cole Ragans for the Royals.
Game time 6:40.
I have it on good authority that the Twins have been involved in an elaborate April Fools prank. Apparently the gist of it is that they play absolutely horrible for four games to start the season, giving up an average of 7 runs a game, play bad defense, don't hit, weird managerial strategies, puzzling broadcast decisions. The whole lot. Get the fan base and all up in arms and the sports scribes moving on to the who the Vikings should draft in the 6th round. Then, on April 1st, it's all APRIL FOOLS! We are actually a good team that is professionally run and managed and they play lights out the rest of the season.
Seems like a dumb strategy, but you know the lengths some organizations will go to pull of an April Fools stunt.
Simeon Wood Richardson on the mound for the Twins. Shane Smith for the Whities. I think he's a reliever so unless the Sox are looking to convert him to a starter, looks like he may be the Opener.
First pitch at 6:40 from The Rate.
Almost forgot my first game log of the year. A win would be nice, yeah?
Not sure if I set this up correctly, but I attempted to use this bracket format (https://www.mlb.com/amp/news/mlb-playoff-format-faq.html) to lay this out:
Please spoiler:
AL East:
AL Central:
AL West:
AL Wild Card:
AL Wild Card:
AL Wild Card:
NL East:
NL Central:
NL West:
NL Wild Card:
NL Wild Card:
NL Wild Card:
Playoffs - identify your winner (if you want)
ALWC1 (3 v 6):
ALWC2 (4 v 5):
NLWC1 (3 v 6):
NLWC2 (4 v 5):
ALDS1:
ALDS2
NLDS1:
NLDS2:
ALCS:
NLCS:
WS:
Awards (if you want)
AL MVP
AL CYA
AL ROY
NL MVP
NL CYA
NL ROY
Elmer Smith (1868)
Gavvy Cravath (1881)
Cy Slapnicka (1886)
Ray Kremer (1893)
Johnny Moore (1902)
Bill Harvey (1908)
Johnny Logan (1927)
Jim Lemon (1928)
Lee May (1943)
George Scott (1944)
Pat Bourque (1947)
Lanny Frattare (1948)
Bo Diaz (1953)
Mrs. A (1954)
Mike Remlinger (1966)
Chris Turner (1969)
Joel Peralta (1976)
Mark Buehrle (1979)
Dellin Betances (1988)
Isiah Kiner-Falefa (1995)
Austin Martin (1999)
Gavvy Cravath's given name is Clifford Carlton Cravath. He got the nickname "Gavvy" because he once hit a ball that killed a seagull, which in Spanish is "gaviota".
Cy Slapnicka was a long-time scout. Players he is credited with signing include Bob Feller, Lou Boudreau, and Herb Score. Somehow, "Cy Slapnicka" just sounds like a name a baseball scout should have.
Lanny Frattare was a radio broadcaster for the Pirates from 1976-2008.
Happy birthday to my Hall of Fame wife.
Harry Lord (1882)
Pat Flaherty (1897)
Bobby Goff (1902)
Pete Fox (1909)
Ray Mueller (1912)
Al Gionfriddo (1922)
Carl Furillo (1922)
Jim Bouton (1939)
Jacques Doucet (1940)
Dick Allen (1942)
Jim Rice (1953)
John Butcher (1957)
Mark Salas (1961)
Lance Barksdale (1967)
Mike Moriarty (1974)
Juan Encarnacion (1976)
Hines Ward (1976)
Tommy Pham (1988)
David Festa (2000)
If you have a few minutes to spare, I would very much recommend reading Harry Lord’s biography at baseball-reference.com.
Pat Flaherty pitched in the minors from 1917-1921. He also played in the NFL from 1923-1928, was a major in the Air Force, and appeared in about 250 movies from 1934 to the 1950s.
Bobby Goff played in the minor leagues for nineteen years, 1923-1941. He also was a minor league manager and general manager and a major league scout, remaining in baseball until 1972.
Jacques Doucet was the French-language play-by-play announcer for the Montreal Expos from 1972 until the team left.
Lance Barksdale has been a major league umpire since 2000.
NFL star Hines Ward was drafted by the Florida Marlins in 1994, but did not sign.
Due to personal time constraints, this is a reprint from last year which has not been updated.
Ed Willett (1884)
Dave Danforth (1890)
Andy Porter (1911)
Andy Phillip (1922)
Bobo Holloman (1923)
Red Wilson (1929)
Galen Cisco (1936)
J. R. Richard (1950)
Jeff Burroughs (1951)
Albert Hall (1958)
Joe Carter (1960)
Jose Cano (1962)
German Gonzalez (1962)
Mauro Gozzo (1966)
Jeff Kent (1968)
Tyler Ladendorf (1988)
Justin Topa (1991)
Pablo Lopez (1996)
Michael Harris (2001)
A member of the basketball Hall of Fame, Andy Phillip played minor league baseball in 1947, 1949, and 1952, batting .281 in 123 games.
Bobo Holloman is sometimes referred to as the worst pitcher ever to throw a major league no-hitter.
The father of Robinson Cano, Jose Cano appeared in six games for Houston in 1989.
Two members of the all-Jeff team were born on this day.
We would also like to wish a happy birthday to strategery's son.
Grover Alexander (1887)
Rip Collins (1896)
Preacher Roe (1916)
Johnny Blanchard (1933)
Don Lee (1934)
Hiromitsu Kadota (1948)
Jack Brohamer (1950)
Rick Wieters (1955)
Kelly Gruber (1962)
Scott Service (1967)
J. T. Snow (1968)
Mark DeRosa (1975)
Trevor Larnach (1997)
Hiromitsu Kadota is third on the Japanese professional baseball home run list with 567.
The father of Matt Wieters, Rick Wieters pitched in the minor leagues for five years, reaching AA.
Due to personal time constraints, this is a reprint from last year, which was a reprint from the year before, which has not been updated. That means we don't have a biography of Brooks Lee. Sorry, Brooks. We'll shoot for next year.
Joe Gerhardt (1855)
Arthur Irwin (1858)
Pretzels Getzien (1864)
Morgan Murphy (1867)
Candy LaChance (1870)
Bob Quinn (1870)
Earl Smith (1897)
Mel Allen (1913)
Red Barrett (1915)
Len Gabrielson (1940)
Ken Levine (1950)
Larry Milbourne (1951)
Will McEnaney (1952)
Dave Dravecky (1956)
Alejandro Sanchez (1959)
John Marzano (1963)
Kelly Stinnett (1970)
Damaso Marte (1975)
Tyler Clippard (1985)
Brooks Lee (2001)
Bob Quinn was a long-time executive for the St. Louis Browns, the Boston Red Sox, and the Boston Braves. He was later the director of the Hall of Fame.
Ken Levine has been a broadcaster for Baltimore, San Diego, and Seattle. He has also worked on a number of television programs, notably including "Cheers" and "Frazier".
John Marzano was drafted by Minnesota in the third round in 1981, but he did not sign.
There have been eight major league players with the last name "Valentine". The most recent was Joe Valentine, a reliever for Cincinnati from 2003-05. The best was Ellis Valentine, who played from 1975-83 and 1985, mostly for Montreal. One became a manager, Bobby Valentine.
We would also like to wish a very happy birthday to Mother 6.
Ray Hayworth (1904)
Wilson Redus (1905)
Pancho Coimbre (1909)
Bill Rigney (1918)
Hank Edwards (1919)
Frank Gravino (1923)
Bobby Bolin (1939)
Sergio Ferrer (1951)
Steve Sax (1960)
Mike Aldrete (1961)
John Habyan (1964)
Jason Schmidt (1973)
Jose Abreu (1987)
Alex Avila (1987)
Hank Conger (1988)
Pancho Coimbre was a star in the Caribbean Leagues and the Negro leagues in the 1940s. Roberto Clemente said that Coimbre was a better player than Clemente was. Coimbre played two full seasons in the Puerto Rican League in which he did not strike out.
Frank Gravino played in the minors from 1940-1942 and 1946-1954. He has been called the greatest slugger in Northern League history, hitting 108 home runs in two seasons there.
We would also like to wish a very happy birthday to Beau's son.
