Tag Archives: winning streaks

Random Rewind: 2008, Game One Hundred Twenty-five

MINNESOTA 13, OAKLAND 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Tuesday, August 19.

Batting stars:  Brian Buscher was 3-for-4 with a home run (his fourth), two runs, and five RBIs.  Justin Morneau was 3-for-4 with two doubles and three runs.  Brendan Harris was 2-for-3 with a double and two RBIs.  Randy Ruiz was 2-for-4 with a walk, two runs, and two RBIs.  Nick Punto was 2-for-4 with a double and a walk.  Carlos Gomez was 1-for-4 with a two-run homer, his sixth.

Pitching starsKevin Slowey struck out twelve in seven innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on five hits and no walks.  Brian Bass pitched two shutout innings, giving up a hit and a walk.

Opposition stars:  Mark Ellis was 2-for-4.  Kurt Suzuki was 1-for-3 with a home run, his seventh.

The game:  Suzuki homered leading off the second to give the Athletics a 1-0 lead.  It was all Twins after that.  In the bottom of the second Jason Kubel singled, Buscher hit a two-run homer, Harris singled, and Denard Span tripled, giving the Twins a 3-1 lead.  In the third Joe Mauer singled, Morneau had an RBI double, Ruiz hit a run-scoring single, and Harris had an RBI double, putting the Twins up 6-1.

Oakland got one back in the fifth on a run-scoring double by Jack Hannahan.  In the fifth, however, Morneau doubled, Ruiz walked, Buscher had an RBI single, Harris hit a sacrifice fly, and Gomez delivered a two-run homer, making the score 10-2.  In the sixth, Punto doubled, Mauer walked, Morneau singled to load the bases, Ruiz had an RBI single, and Buscher drove in two with a single, bringing the score to 13-2.  The Twins apparently got tired of running around the bases at that point, because that's how the score ended.

WP:  Slowey (10-8).  LP:  Sean Gallagher (4-6).  S:  None.

Notes:  Punto was at second in place of Alexi Casilla, who was out for three weeks.  That put Harris at shortstop--Punto played 61 games at short and Harris 55, with Adam Everett playing 44.  Kubel was in left in place of Delmon Young, who was given the day off.  That put Ruiz at DH.

The only position-player substitution was Mike Lamb pinch-hitting for Morneau in the eighth.  He stayed in the game at first base.

Ruiz was batting .379 at this point (29 at-bats).  He would finish at .274.  Mauer was batting .324.  He would lead the team at .328.  Span was batting .318.  He would finish at .294.  Buscher was batting .314.  He would also finish at .294.  Morneau was batting .309.  He would finish at .300.  The Twins batted .279, which was third in the league.  Texas led at .283.

Morneau led the team with 23 homers.  Kubel was second with 20 and Young hit ten.  The Twins hit 111 homers, which was dead last in the league.  Chicago led with 235, more than twice the Twins' total.

Scott Baker was the staff ace, going 11-4, 3.45, 1.18 WHIP.  Slowey did well, going 12-11, 3.99, 1.15.  Nick Blackburn led in starts with 33 and went 11-11, 4.05, 1.36.  Glen Perkins was 12-4, 4.41, 1.47.  Livan Hernandez was 10-8, 5.48, 1.63.  Francisco Liriano did well when he could pitch, but made just 14 starts, going 6-4, 3.91, 1.40.  The only other starter was Boof Bonser, who was 3-7, 5.93, 1.48.

Joe Nathan had a tremendous year, posting an ERA of 1.33, a WHIP of 0,90, and 39 saves.  Dennys Reyes had a 2.33 ERA and a WHIP of 1.19.  Jesse Crain posted an ERA of 3.59 and a WHIP of 3.72.  The weak link was Matt Guerrier, who appeared in 76 games but went 6-9, 5.19, 1.59 WHIP.  He had started pretty well, but completely imploded in the last two months of the season, going 0-5 with an ERA over ten and a WHIP over two in 25 games.  Of course, some responsibility has to go to Ron Gardenhire for continuing to send him out there when he clearly wasn't getting the job done.

The Twins were seventh in ERA at 4.16.  Toronto led at 3.49, which was well ahead of second-place Tampa Bay (3.82).  The Twins were also seventh in WHIP at 1.35.  Toronto led there, too, at 1.24.

In addition to Suzuki, Oakland also used ex-Twin Rob Bowen.

Jack Cust was 0-for-3 with three strikeouts.  It seems probable that Jack Cussed.

Athletics starter Sean Gallagher was allowed to go five innings, allowing ten runs on eleven hits and three walks.  They had used four pitchers for multiple innings over the last two games, so presumably Bob Geren just felt he needed some innings out of Gallagher whether he was getting anything accomplished or not.

I don't think I could've told you that the Twins once had a player called Randy Ruiz.

This was the first of a four-game winning streak and the sixth game of a stretch in which the Twins would win eight of nine.

Record:  The Twins were 71-54, in second place in the American League Central, a half game behind Chicago.  They would finish 88-75, in second place, one game behind Chicago after losing game 163,

The Athletics were 57-68, in third place in the American League West, 19.5 games behind Los Angeles.  They would finish 75-86, in third place, 24.5 games behind Los Angeles.

Random record:  The Twins are 51-48 in Random Rewind games.  This is the first time they've been three games over .500 for some time.

1991 Rewind: Game Fifty-eight

MINNESOTA 5, NEW YORK 3 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Tuesday, June 11.

Batting stars:  Greg Gagne was 2-for-2 with a stolen base, his fourth.  Kent Hrbek was 2-for-4 with two RBIs.

Pitching stars:  Kevin Tapani pitched eight innings, giving up three runs on six hits and one walk and striking out four.  Rick Aguilera pitched a perfect inning.

Opposition stars:  Scott Sanderson pitched seven innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on seven hits and no walks and striking out three.  Mel Hall was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer, his tenth.  Roberto Kelly was 1-for-4 with a home run, his seventh.

The game:  There was no score until the third, when Gagne singled, went to third on a stolen base-plus-error, and scored on a ground out.  It stayed 1-0 until the seventh, when Don Mattingly walked and Hall hit a one-out two-run homer, putting the Yankees ahead 2-1.  In the eighth, Kelly homered to increase the lead to 3-1.

The Twins came back in the bottom of the eighth.  Mike Pagliarulo led off with a single, chasing Sanderson from the game.  Steve Howe came in and gave up a single to Shane Mack, putting men on first and second.  John Habyan came in and Dan Gladden got a bunt single, loading the bases.  Chuck Knoblauch walked, forcing in a run to make the score 3-2.  Kirby Puckett struck out, but Greg Cadaret came in and gave up a two-run single to Hrbek, giving the Twins a 4-3 lead.  Chili Davis walked to re-load the bases and bring on Steve Farr.  He retired Brian Harper on a popup, but Gene Larkin walked to force in another run to give the Twins a 5-3 advantage.

The Yankees went down in order in the ninth.

WP:  Tapani (4-6).  LP:  Habyan (4-2).  S:  Aguilera (17).

Notes:  Larkin was in right field, replacing Mack.  Mack came on in the eighth inning as a pinch-hitter for Randy Bush, who had been sent up as a pinch-hitter for Gagne.  Mack stayed in the game in right field.  Al Newman, who had pinch-run for Pagliarulo, stayed in the game at shortstop.  Scott Leius replaced Larkin in the batting order and played third base.

Harper was 1-for-4 and is batting .333.  Puckett was 0-for-4 and is batting .317.  Gagne raised his average to .307.  Aguilera lowered his ERA to 2.12.

As shown above, the Yankees used five pitchers in the eighth inning.  I'm not going to judge that--I don't have the time to go back and look at all these pitchers and the matchups and all that to see if it made sense to make all those pitching changes.  I'll just echo what Bill James once said--it sure looks bad when it doesn't work.

As also shown above, and as we've already seen several times, Tom Kelly was not at all afraid to use his bench.  Of course, teams had bigger benches back then, but still, he was not hesitant to put his reserves into the game.

My recollection was that Mel Hall was somewhat of a Twins killer.  My recollection was correct.  For his career, Hall batted .314/.346/.511 against Minnesota.  For comparison, his career numbers are .276/.318/.437.  In 1991, he batted .323/.313/.452 against the Twins.  The home run in this game was his only homer against Minnesota this season.  Among teams against which he had a hundred or more plate appearances, he did best against St. Louis--.323/.376/.616.

The Twins had now won ten in a row and thirteen of fourteen.  They continued to climb the standings.  How long could they keep it going?

Record:  The Twins were 33-25, in third place in the American League West, two games behind Oakland.  They were a half game behind second-place California and 2.5 games ahead of fourth-place Seattle.

2016 Game 37(!?) – Minnesota Twins at Detroit Tigers

Halfway through a six game road trip, the Twins take their first trip of the year to Motown. Finally stringing together 2 road wins for the first time this year (hell, two wins in a row anywhere this is relatively impressive), they look to keep the momentum going against a Tigers team that's also no great shakes. Of course, they swept the Twins in Minnesota a couple weeks back, so I should probably stop flapping my gums.

Making it 3 in a row will be no easy task as the Twins will have to go through Jordan Zimmerman to do it. Other than some tough assignments against Hamels and Scherzer, Zimmerman has been outstanding this year. Twins will send out Berrios, who can hopefully put together a few more pieces at the major league level.

Continue reading 2016 Game 37(!?) – Minnesota Twins at Detroit Tigers

Game 89: Orioles 7, Twins 19!

Couldn't leave that one without a recap, though I did not see it or hear much of it.

Twins scored 7 runs in the bottom of the first, added 1 in the second, 2 in the third and another in the fourth. It wasn't until the fifth that they failed to score during the home-half of an inning. Meanwhile, Baltimore didn't put up a crooked number until the fifth and Diamond did what he had to do with all of the run support: finished 6 innings and allowing 5 runs on 9 hits while striking out 3 and walking 1.

Every Twins starter had a hit except Doumit who still managed to pick up 2 RBI and a run scored. Morneau went 4-5 to continue his hit streak as did Plouffe. Span only managed 5 RBI on 3 hits including 2 doubles. Mauer jacked a donger, just because he felt like it.

Oh, and just for fun, the Twins added 5 more runs in the 8th to get that nice round number - 20 hits on the night.

Thome did not hit.

Capps gave up a 2-run homer to Chavez and is hurt again.

Game 33: Blue Jays at Twins

The Twins won last night. It was a pretty good game. Between that and sitting out on the deck drinking delicious gin and tonics most of the afternoon, I'm feeling pretty positive.

Tonight might change that. Drew Hutchison hasn't shown up on any elite prospect lists that I know of, but he compiled a pretty good FIP throughout the minors (2.22) whereas our pitcher (P.J. Walters) didn't wow folks quite as much.

But this is positive day, so rather than judge our starting pitchers by their minor league record, we'll note that Hutchison hasn't exactly wowed anyone in his cup of coffee thus far. Theorhetically, he'd be the type of high-strikeout, low walk guy that would eat the Twins alive, but nothing is stopping this winning streak from hitting '2'.

2012 Game Logs: Game 12 Timberwolves @ Atlanta

Minnesota did their best to do a 2010-11 Timberwolves impression last night in giving away a 4th quarter lead. The main problem for the Wolves last night was Emeka Okafor being unguarded by Anthony Randolph for much of the game last night. Thankfully, Al Horford is going to be out for (likely) the rest of the season leaving Zaza Pachulia as Atlanta's starting center.

Here is a weird gambling fact about tonight's game:

Road team is 9-1-1 ATS in the last 11 meetings.

The Wolves are 7.5 point dogs tonight against a Al Horford-less Hawks team. I appreciate these teams having their better players injured to give the Wolves a chance while Beasley is out. It is mighty sporting of them.