Tag Archives: winning streak

Keeping Track

1991 Rewind: Game Fifty-three

MINNESOTA 4, BALTIMORE 3 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Wednesday, June 5.

Batting stars:  Chili Davis was 3-for-4 with a stolen base.  Lenny Webster was 1-for-4 with a two-run homer, his second.

Pitching star:  Kevin Tapani pitched 7.2 innings, giving up one run on seven hits and a walk and striking out four.

Opposition stars:  Randy Milligan was 2-for-4 with a home run, his fifth.  Mike Devereaux was 2-for-4.  Cal Ripken was 2-for-4.  David Segui was 1-for-4 with a home run.

The game:  Nobody got past first until the fourth inning, when the Twins put men on second and third with two out.  The Twins started the scoring in the fifth, when Mike Pagliarulo walked and Webster followed with a two-run homer, giving the Twins a 2-0 lead.

The Orioles got one back in the sixth when Devereaux singled, Tim Hulett walked, and Joe Orsulak delivered an RBI single.  The Twins got the run back plus another in the bottom of the sixth on singles by Kent Hrbek and Davis and a two-run single-plus-error by Shane Mack, making the score 4-1.

Baltimore got a pair of two-out singles in the eighth, but Rick Aguilera came in to retire Orsulak.  In the ninth, however, with Aguilera still in the game, the Orioles got one-out back-to-back homers from Milligan and David Segui to cut the lead to 4-3.  Aguilera came back to strike out Chris Hoiles and Ernie Whitt to save the win.

WP:  Tapani (3-6).  LP:  Jose Mesa (4-6).  S:  Aguilera (13).

Notes:  Al Newman was at second base in place of Chuck Knoblauch.  He batted second despite his .484 OPS.  Webster was behind the plate in place of Brian Harper.

Webster was batting .333.  He had two hits to this point in the season, both home runs.  Kirby Puckett was 0-for-3 with a walk and was batting .330.  Greg Gagne was 0-for-3 and was batting .311.  Davis raised his average to .304.  Despite giving up two runs, Aguilera still had an ERA of just 2.33.

Newman was 0-for-4 and was batting .187.

Mesa pitched 5.1 innings and allowed four runs (three earned) on six hits and three walks and struck out one.

The Twins had won five in a row.  That matched their longest winning streak of the season, April 24-28.

Record:  The Twins were 28-25, fifth in the American League West, but just one percentage point behind fourth-place Seattle.  They trailed Oakland by 4.5 games.

2016 Twins Game Logs

Game 48: twins @ mariners

33 Comments

Winning streak!

We might not get a whole lot of these this season, so it's worth getting excited over them, no matter how seemingly insignificant.

You know what would go nice with that winning streak? A long winning streak.

Hughes tries to make that happen tonight. Wade Miley tries to stop him, but other than having a pretty full beard in his bbref photo, I'm not convinced. The Twins weren't supposed to win last night, and they dominated, surely they can take on Grizzly Adams and his 4.51 FIP, right?

Twins on Leaderboards

On Base Percentage - Mauer - 10th (.389)
Base on Balls - Mauer - t-3rd (29)
Base on Balls - Sano - t-6th(26)
Strikeouts - Sano - t-2nd (67)
Stolen Bases - Santana - t-4th (10)
Stolen Bases - Nunez - t-9th (8)
Hit By Pitch - Park - t-5th (5)
Hit By Pitch - Núñez - t-10th (3)
Hit By Pitch - Dozier - t-10th (3)
Sacrifice Hits - Murphy - t-6th (2)
Sacrifice Hits - Rosario -  t-6th (2)
Intentional Walks - Mauer - t-3rd (5)
Caught Stealing - Santana - t-3rd (5)
AB per HR - Park - 8th (15.2)

BB/9 - Hughes - 7th (1.664)
BB/9 - Nolasco - 10th (1.904)
Games Pitched - Pressly - t-3rd (24)
Games Pitched - May - t-7th (23)
Complete Games - Hughes - t3rd (1)
K/BB - Nolasco - 10th (4.182)
Losses - Hughes - 1st (7)
Earned Runs - Nolasco - t-8th (32)
Wild Pitches - May - t-2nd (6)

2015 Twins Game Recaps

Game 44: Twins 7, Red Sox 2

Yesterday's game featured great examples of the various facets of what makes for winning baseball, and highlighted why it is the Twins (26-18) have moved to only 2 games behind AL Central-leading Kansas City. Their recent improvements on offense, defense and pitching were all on display in the first four innings. To start the game off, we saw:
-a 6-run second inning (12 men batted),
-a diving catch by Hicks in the second to save a run with the game at 1-0, and
-Ricky Nolasco striking out 3 (of his 5), inducing 3 ground outs (one a nifty around-the-horn double play -more defense!- to end a first inning threat) and bearing down to get some important outs in the third after the Red Sox put their first two batters on base to start the inning.

Every Twins player contributed to the 16 total hits and only Kurt Suzuki didn't score a run or notch an RBI.

Ricky Nolasco (5-1, 5.12 ERA) ended up going 7 2/3 innings, scattering 7 hits and allowing 2 earned runs while striking out 5 and walking none. With Mookie Betts standing on second, Aaron Thompson replaced Nolasco and got David Ortiz - he of the .509 batting average at Target Field (prior to yesterday) - to line out. Boyer pitched the 9th, allowing only one hit, and the Twins won for the third day in a row, 7th out of their past 10 games, and for the 16th time in May.*

*Last year, Minnesota was 23-21 after 44 games. The Twins won their 15th home game on May 27th. They'd lost 13 games on the road by May 26 of last year; they're at 12 road losses so far in 2015.