Joe Mauer has made his retirement official and it has me reflecting on favorite ballplayers and how our relationships with them change as we age.
Nov13
My Favorite Baseball Player
Tag Archives: Minnesota Twins
Aug11
Athletics 3, Twins 1 (Series result — game scores below)
I spent the bulk of my weekend at the O.co Coliseum in Oakland to see the Twins come to town instead of back in Minnesota for the annual family gathering at the cabin… because I have my priorities straight. While I would have liked to have seen my extended family, particularly my cousins’ kids who I don’t see often enough, apparently they were able to see me on Saturday night, as I made it on the broadcast while Jack Morris rambled on about being in the Minnesota Lottery Winner’s Circle. The friends I had gone to the game with had all left me to babysit the bobblehead dolls¹ and it was between innings and thus, I was looking down at either my scorebook or my phone the entire time. Apparently this caused my grandmother to yell at me from all the way back in Minnesota, but unsurprisingly, I did not hear her and did not look up at her.
Getting on TV might be the personal non-actual-baseball-game-related highlight for the weekend, except that, also on Saturday, Trevor Plouffe tossed me a baseball during batting practice. In fact, he tossed me two as the first one was intercepted by a kid in A’s gear that dove in front of me. For the second time, wearing the away team’s jersey got me special recognition as the second baseball he tossed me, he announced was for me specifically. My friend Jen Perez, who was standing behind me at the time, actually got a picture of him flipping me the baseball with her DSLR, as opposed to the picture I took of the baseball itself from my camera phone.
As I didn’t bother bringing my good camera to the park for any of the four games I went to², all of the pictures in the gallery below were taken by Jen.
As for the baseball itself… it was the team with the best record in baseball against the Twins. I think the Twins were lucky to take one (on Sunday). Here’s the bulleted recap of the four games:
- Thursday: Athletics 3, Twins 0 — The John Lester-Yoenis Cespedes trade seems to be working out for Oakland as he took a perfect game into the 6th inning before surrendering a single to former A Kurt Suzuki. At one point, with two runners on, Brian Dozier hit a ball over the wall that looked like it might be fair, to the point that he started doing the homerun trot, but alas, it had just hooked foul and the Twins didn’t score. Lester wound up pitching a complete 9-inning shutout. Yohan Pino also pitched well for the Twins, not giving up a hit until the third inning. But that hit was a homerun by Stephen Vogt, which was preceded by a walk to Alberto Callaspo. The A’s didn’t need anymore offense to win the game and more less just rode to victory on Lester’s coat tails.
- Friday: Athletics 6, Twins 5 — I had this sinking feeling that the Twins were in danger of getting no-hit for the second night in a row as Scott Kazmir took a perfect game into the 5th. Meanwhile, the A’s offense lit up in the 5th and 6th, giving them a 6-0 lead and it looked like it was going to be a runaway. But the Twins bounced back with a 5 run 7th that was actually exciting to watch. It seemed like, maybe, just maybe, they’d come back — and hey, at least they made it interesting. In the 9th, with Kennys Vargas on first and two outs, Josh Willingham, another former A, launched what looked like might just be a go-ahead two run homer… that hooked just foul down the left field line. It was deja vu with Dozier’s foul ball the night before. Willingham struck out to end the game on the next pitch.
- Saturday: Athletics 9, Twins 4 — The score of this game is closer than the game really was. Trevor May, one of the Twins top pitching prospects, was making his major league debut as the starter for Minnesota and, uh, he did not do so well. 2 innings, 4 runs, 7 walks. He threw more balls than strikes and two of those walks were bases loaded walks to Derek Norris. Were it not for a 7-2 double play (Willingham gunning down Josh Reddick at home after tagging up), the damage would have been a lot worse in the first inning. He was pulled early for Samuel Deduno, who was mostly there to eat innings. And he ate them, but not prettily, giving up 5 more runs in 3+ innings of work. The Twins managed to score a few runs here and there, but after the early blow up by May, it seemed mostly futile. But hey, I got a baseball from Trevor Plouffe and was on TV, so it wasn’t all bad.
- Sunday: Twins 6, Athletics 1 — The Twins finally won one! With Phil Hughes starting, I figured that Sunday’s game was the game the Twins were most likely to win… and I was right. Dozier started the Twins off with a solo homerun in the first, which the A’s responded quickly with a run of their own in the bottom of the inning to tie it up. It remained at 1-1 for quite awhile, with Phil Hughes settling down and pitching a gem of a game. Casey Fien started warming up after the 7th and it looked like Hughes might not get a decision out of his work, but then the former A’s on the Twins, Suzuki and Willingham, knocked in three runs in the top of the 8th, including a two run homerun by Willingham, which would turn out to be his last hit as a Twin, given that he was traded to the Royals today. This set Hughes up for the win. After Fien through a scoreless inning, Glen Perkins started warming up and I thought I might see a classic Perkins save, but the Twins offense and the A’s bullpen had other plans. In the top of the 9th, the Twins scored another two runs, on a weird little infield hit from Kurt Suzuki with the bases loaded followed a bases loaded walk to Kennys Vargas. I thought only the Twins were allowed to walk in runs! With now a 5 run lead, it was no longer a save situation for Perk, but he came in to pitch anyway and mowed the A’s down 1-2-3 to finally, finally get the Twins a win against Oakland, something they hadn’t done in the previous 12 games the two teams had played.
¹ – It was Tony LaRussa bobblehead night on Saturday. As I remarked on twitter, the bobbleheads looked more like Kent Hrbek than LaRussa.
² – I still have hundreds of photos to go through from my recent trip to Denver with my parents to see the Twins take on the Rockies, which, uh, I should blog about. Also my trip to New York to see the Twins against the Yankees with Anand. I think I missed a random Giants game in this long stretch of a non-blogging summer too.
Jun18
Twins 2, Tigers 0
Anand recently called me out for not blogging about the game we went to in New York a few weeks ago, and he’s right, and I’ll get to it, but as it’s not the only game I’ve missed out on writing about, I’ll start with the most recent and probably fudge the dates to get these things in chronological order so it doesn’t look like I’ve been the worst blogger in the world.
I spent most of this past weekend (where “weekend” starts on Wednesday) in Lansing, MI for the US Curling Arena Nationals, winning the consolation bracket (and thus a trophy). However, due to some strangeness of the draw and the fact that we won both games on Thursday, we did not have to play a game on Friday… and the Twins were in Detroit, which was only two hours away. I was on the fence about making the drive, especially considering that we had to get up early to play on Saturday and that my team insisted we go see Lake Michigan on the western edge of the state — i.e. the wrong direction from Detroit. But then swalsh‘s team won Friday morning, giving them the evening off and Sarah was determined to join me at this game, as she had never been to Comerica. And so, my mini-roadtrip across the entire state of Michigan to see the Twins was set.
It had been awhile since I’d been to Comerica and my ability to get there without consulting directions wasn’t quite what I thought it was — but we managed, and with a little detour to see what’s left of Tiger Stadium (a fence and a field). Sarah commented that Detroit looks a lot like the rougher neighborhoods of Oakland… and then I pointed out that we were in the “good” neighborhood of Detroit. Eventually, we found a scalper, paid too much money (have to help that Detroit economy?), and entered the stadium… for Polish night, apparently.
Mercifully for our curling schedules, the game itself went quick. Kyle Gibson was on fire for the Twins, pitching 7 shutout innings on 110 pitches, including getting the always dangerous Miguel Cabrera to ground into an inning ending double play with the bases loaded in the fifth. Drew Smyly also pitched well for Detroit, but not quite well enough, giving up a homerun early to Eduardo Escobar in the 3rd, which would prove to be all the offense needed to win the game.
It wasn’t the only run scored however. Late in the game was Twilight Zone time for long time Twins fans. First, Torii Hunter came in to pinch hit and it’s still bizarre to see him in a Tigers uniform — I had finally gotten used to him being an Angel and not a Twin. He did no damage, grounding out to third. Next, former lights out closer for the Twins, Joe Nathan, came in to pitch for the Tigers in the 9th. I think Joe forgot which team he was supposed to be helping as he actually walked in a run to put the Twins up 2-0. Glen Perkins, who now holds Joe’s old job as “All-Star Twins closer,” came in in the bottom of ninth and, in classic Glen style, gave up a double to make it interesting, but shut down the Tigers nonetheless to end the game.
And with that, we got back in the car and drove two hours to Lansing to finish off the curling tournament where my team won the aforementioned consolation bracket and Sarah’s won the bronze medal. The key to taking home hardware from our club is apparently to send your skip to a baseball game.
May24
Twins 2, Giants 6
As a thank you for being the director of the incredibly-awesome-if-I-do-say-so-myself Alice Shrugged 2014 Mystery Hunt, our equally awesome-if-I-do-say-so-myself team of editors and testsolving coordinators* bought me a pair of tickets to tonight’s Twins-Giants game at AT&T Park, sitting in the third row right behind first base, which allowed me to stare at Joe Mauer and Buster Posey all night. I took my Fraggle Rocks** teammate, Jen Perez, who was even willing to wear my spare Twins jersey, despite being a Padres fan from San Diego.
The game started off well for the Twins. Brian Dozier doubled down the left field line on the first pitch of the game. But then it went south fast. Dozier got picked off trying to steal third very quickly and in the bottom of the first, Angel Pagan did not immediately squander his lead off double and the Giants wound up scoring three on a Pablo Sandoval homerun to right. (There was a challenge early in the inning which resulted in Hunter Pence being safe at first instead of out as the umpire’s originally ruled it. Yes, it was the right call, but man, oh man, do I hate this new challenge system.)
In the top of the third, it looked like the Twins were going to make a ballgame out of it when Brian Dozier led off with a single and Joe Mauer followed with a deep shot to Triples Alley, which sure enough, wound up being an RBI triple. Parmelee hit a ground ball to second, which allowed Mauer to score and suddenly the Twins were within one. Unfortunately, they never scored again, which was not true for the Giants, who piled on an additional three runs throughout the game, including one on a Hicks homerun and later a Hicks sacrifice fly.
Which Hicks, you ask? This is a fair question as both the Giants and the Twins had a guy named Hicks batting 8th. And for a brief period, they both were batting .194. But then Brandon Hicks of the Giants hit his homerun and his average went up to .200, whereas Aaron Hicks of the Twins, well, he’s now batting .192. In other similarities between the two teams, both feature a first baseman who is a former MVP catcher with at least one batting title and a wife who had twins: Joe Mauer and Buster Posey.
Finally, I’m sure Jen would be disappointed if I left out one of the major sources of entertainment for the evening: the guys behind and to the right of us who, from about the 5th inning through the 8th inning, relentlessly hassled the Twins bullpen catcher to “give the kid a ball.” Which kid? Well, I’m not sure they knew or cared, initially, but eventually they picked a pet kid sitting in our section with a Giants hat on. It seemed pretty clear to me that they were pissing off the bullpen catcher, but eventually — eventually — he gave the kid a ball. Actually, it was a different kid wearing a Twins jersey, but it did seem to satisfy the guys to the point that they stopped chanting. That and the usher came over and threatened to kick them out if they didn’t stop now that a kid had a ball.
All in all, a great night… and I’ll be back on Sunday, sitting much farther away from the field, hoping for a different outcome in the score!
* I believe this includes Jason Juang (who actually purchased the tickets and delivered them to me), Aaron Bader, Brandy Buckingham, Robbie Buckingham, Jamie Clark, Harvey Jones, Dan Katz, Roger Morash, Chieu Nguyen, and David Wilson. If a non-editor/non-testsolving coordinator also went in on the tickets, someone should tell me.
** Is that not the best name for a curling team you’ve ever heard?
Aug17
Twins 1, Tigers 5
Blah, blah, blah, went to a Twins game on my 22 hour stopover in Minnesota. Blah, blah, blah Twins lost. Blah, blah, blah Tigers won, but Verlander wasn’t pitching, so there’s no silver lining there. Blah, blah, blah I won a free shirt at the game from the Twins twitter account. Blah, blah, blah…
I’m in Switzerland! I spent yesterday in Paris! (I know at least one person reads my baseball posts and inserts the “blah, blah, blahs” in his head. Figured I’d add them for everyone this time because I AM IN SWITZERLAND and I’m only blogging this game as a formality.) I just woke up at 6 am and watched the end of the Twins loss to the Mariners in Seattle. Timezones are weird.
Jun19
Twins 5, Brewers 4 — 15 innings
As previously mentioned, the day after Martini’s wedding, I took Quinn, Harvey, and Katie to Target Field to see the Twins play the Brewers. Except that Quinn was, uh, recovering and didn’t show up until the top of the 5th. No worries however — he still got to see 9 full innings of baseball as the Twins and Brewers decided it was a good day to play 15. In fact, Quinn saw more innings than Harvey and Katie, who had to leave after the 9th in order to catch their respective flights. There was also a 45 minute rain delay in the 12th, during which I got to visit the Metropolitan Club for the first time, thanks to a new friend I had previously only known on Twinkie Town and twitter, who happened to be sitting a few rows in front of us in the third deck. Thanks, Anelle (not her real name)!
As for the game — the good guys won! Both teams scored a run early through a combination of small ball, but then the Brewers went up 4-1 in the 5th on a Corey Hart 3-run homerun. (This coincided with Quinn arriving at our seats, so we decided it was his fault.) The many Brewers fans in the park went crazy, but their joy only lasted a few innings as the Twins tied it up in the 7th on a walk and four singles. And then the score stayed tied… and stayed tied. And then it rained… and rained.
After our field trip to the Metropolitan Club, where I checked out some Blyleven memorabilia and some Twins china, we relocated to the first level, right behind first base. Jeff Gray came in to pitch for the Twins and performed like an ace for three innings, before getting replaced by Swarzak in the 15th. In the bottom half of the innings, the Twins managed to load the bases in the 12th, but failed to score. Then came the 15th and they put two runners on. Jamey Carroll hit a single and Trevor Plouffe came around to score what I was sure would be the winning run, only to get caught in a run down. After a Brewers pitching change and some defensive indifference, Denard Span came to the plate with runners on second and third… and boom! Solid single to right to win the game! Twins win! The crowd (all eighteen of us left — which apparently included my uncle and cousin) went crazy!
Take that, Wisconsin. Here’s some pictures.
May6
Mariners 5, Twins 2
My last game in Seattle I went solo — my Mom hadn’t decided to come along until after I had already purchased my 9th row behind home plate seat. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the best game for being a Twins fan… other than two solo homeruns by Washington native Ryan Doumit, the Twins generated no offense. By contrast, the Mariners scored three in the first, one in the second, and a fifth run in the fourth to more or less put the game away early.
But it was a gorgeous day for baseball and my view of the game couldn’t be beat. Afterwards, I went up to the upper deck and saw Mt. Rainier, which was in full view for the first time all weekend. Seattle — it’s a lovely town. If only the Twins had decided to play a bit better, the weekend would have been perfect.
May6
Mariners 7, Twins 0
I nearly saw history last night… Felix Hernandez one-hit the Twins en route to a 7-0 victory. Really, as far as the game goes, it was horrific for a Twins fan (me and my mother) and exciting for a King Felix fan (Amittai). But we did have awesome seats, right behind the Twins dugout, purchased after a mini-adventure negotiating with scalpers. As my mom put it, it really felt like we were watching a different game than last night.
Amittai also got me to do a thing I never do, which is leave my seat during the game. We went and walked around the upper deck to see the views of the Seattle skyline — it wasn’t clear enough to see Rainier, but the sunset just past the Space Needle was nice.
And for those who might be curious, Amittai and my mother got along just fine.
May5
Twins 3, Mariners 2
Twins win! Twins win!
Given the week they’ve had (i.e. they were no hit in their last game and hadn’t scored a run since Monday), I’m extra excited at having attended a win tonight. I got up this morning and flew to Seattle where my mother was already waiting for me — after having herself quite the adventure last night. (My mom is, uh, not a seasoned traveler. But she managed not to go to the hospital, so that’s something.) We headed out to the game early to check out some batting practice and get out of the rain.
That’s right, we went to the game to get out of the rain — because Safeco Field has a retractable roof. And actually, as far as ballpark roofs go, this was by far the best one I’ve ever seen, because it’s only a roof and there are no high walls. It doesn’t seal up the ballpark and the fresh air still comes in from outside. (By the middle of the game, I might have been a little bit wishing that the air was less freezing fresh.) Two thumbs up from me — plus the oyster po’boy was pretty delicious.
And as an added bonus, we were treated to a pre-game concert by Mike McCready, lead guitarist of Pearl Jam, who played the national anthem Jimi Hendrix style… and I recorded it for the Internet to enjoy, missing the first phrase:
And then there was the very excellent game that The Twins Won!! In particular, the 7th inning when they scored three runs on a Parmelee double, two walks, a fielding error, a fielder’s choice, and a Joe Mauer single. It wasn’t exactly an offensive juggernaut, but it got the job done as Carl Pavano and the Bullpen (new band playing covers at the local bar?) held the Mariners to only two runs. Matt Capps even came and pitched a 1-2-3 9th inning with two strikeouts. It’s a Star Wars Day miracle! (May the fourth be with you…) Maybe they can do it again tomorrow when I attend a game with my mother and Amittai?
Nov2
Baseball Photography
Last fall before I went to Alaska, I bought myself a fancy new camera — not a DSLR, but a fancier model than my old point and shoot that fit in my pocket. (It’s a Panasonic DMC-FZ35 if that means anything to you.) It has an 18x zoom and a burst mode. These two features combined mean that it’s excellent for taking pictures at baseball games. Thus, I have literally thousands of pictures from all the games I’ve gone to this year — and this doesn’t even count all the pictures I took with my old camera after the new one was accidentally left back in Minnesota. Most of the pictures are pretty dull and redundant — batters taking pitches or swinging and missing. However, there is the occasional treasure.
And so, as an excuse to blog even though the baseball season is over, here are my 10 favorite pictures from various baseball games I went to this season. (Also, I figured out I can embed slideshows, so this seemed like a good first slideshow.)
Colossus of Rhode 