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This Date in Twins History: April 14

2002 Trailing 7-5 in the bottom of the eighth inning, the Twins scored eight runs to win 13-7 over the Tigers. The eight-run eighth leads to two rare occurrences: two PAs by Bobby Kielty as a pinch hitter and a triple by David Ortiz. Kielty tied the game with a two-run HR off Matt Anderson while pinch hitting for Denny Hocking. Ortiz put the Twins ahead with a three-run triple while pinch hitting for Matthew LeCroy. Kielty would later walk with the bases loaded before being replaced by Jay Canizaro to play second base to give Kielty two PAs in the eighth as a pinch hitter.
2004 Light-hitting catcher Henry Blanco went 4-for-4 with a home run, two doubles, three runs, and three RBIs in a 10-6 Twins victory over the Indians. Juan Rincon struck out former Twin Casey Blake with two runners on base in the ninth to get the save when Joe Nathan allowed three runs on three hits and two walks while getting some work in after not pitching for four days.
This entry was posted by socaltwinsfan on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 9:28 am and is filed under MLB, Minnesota Twins, This Day in History categories and tags. It is one of 190 entries by the author. We are no longer accepting Letters to the Editor on this post.

23 LTEs in response to This Date in Twins History: April 14

  • SBG
    April 14, 2009 at 9:52 am

    We sure miss Henry Blanco. I do recall that game were Kielty pinch hit twice in the same inning.

    • brianS
      April 14, 2009 at 10:07 am

      3-4 with 2 HRs against SF on Saturday.

      He's been designated as Jake Peavy's personal catcher by the Pods. So, you know, if he came with Peavy, I'd be all over having Blanco back on the squad.

    • socaltwinsfan
      April 14, 2009 at 10:24 am

      I actually remember Ortiz's triple. I had forgotten about Kielty's two PH appearances.

  • AMR
    April 14, 2009 at 11:09 am

    I remember doing some analysis back on Batgirl's site... Through some point, I believe that the Twins won more than 80% of the games in which Blanco got more than one hit (I think they may have been 5-1 or something). He led the team in that statistic. I don't remember who had the negative record (Twins lost mroe when he hit more).

  • zooomx
    April 14, 2009 at 11:14 am

    Kielty tied the game with a two-run HR off Matt Anderson while pinch hitting for Denny Hocking. Ortiz put the Twins ahead with a three-run triple while pinch hitting for Matthew LeCroy.

    Anyone else find this sentence amusing. What a starting line-up that day huh?

    • AMR
      April 14, 2009 at 11:41 am

      You can follow the link:
      Jacque (LF)
      Guzie
      M11
      LeCroy (DH)
      Torii
      Koskie
      Dustan (RF)
      AJ

      Pitchers Used:
      Joe Mays 5.0
      Jack Cressend 1.0
      LaTroy 1.0
      Bob Wells 0.2
      JC Romero 0.1, W
      Tony Fiore 1.0

      The only Tiger I recognize is D. "Meat Tree" Young. It was the Tiger's 11th loss of the season, in their 11th game.

      Denny Hocking (2B)

      • ubelmann
        April 14, 2009 at 12:17 pm

        The only Tiger I recognize is D. "Meat Tree" Young.

        Really? Bobby Higginson played for them forever it seemed like. Plus, one game I was in the LF bleachers at the Dome, Higginson ripped the seat of his pants sliding (either on the bases or in the field, I forget), prompting a "Back Door Bob-by" chant from the cheap seats. Good times.

        It looks like that lineup had Randall Simon pre-sausage-beating and pre-WBC-hero. Halter and Fick were each long enough that I recognize their names, and Steve Sparks was one of the few knuckleballers in the recent past.

    • Andrew
      April 14, 2009 at 12:31 pm

      Who the hell is Jay Canizaro?

  • socaltwinsfan
    April 14, 2009 at 11:40 am

    Just realized the links to the boxes weren't working. Just fixed it so you can click on the years to go to the boxes. Also, I failed to note that that eight-run eighth inning dropped the Tigers to 0-11. Ouch!

  • rob
    April 14, 2009 at 3:16 pm

    So, apparenty the Tigers had 3 statues in the outfield? How else do Ortiz and LeCroy get Triples? They were arguably the slowest pro baseball players!

    • ubelmann
      April 14, 2009 at 3:46 pm

      Good point. LeCroy's is listed as a line drive to deep right to lead off the bottom of the second. For his career, Fick seems to have pretty bad outfield defensive stats, especially in range. He's about 8-9 runs below average per 150 games in range, but had an arm that was about 4-5 runs above average per 150 games.

      Ortiz's triple is listed as GB through short RF. The bases were loaded with no outs, so I would guess that it was really a double but that Ortiz got to third on a throw home (Mientkiewicz was the last runner coming home) and the scorekeeper didn't bother distinguishing it as a double advancing to third on the throw.

    • SBG
      April 14, 2009 at 3:49 pm

      That's a huge outfield in Detroit. My memory of this game is pretty fuzzy, but I seem to remember Oritz flopping into third. Anyone else got a memory of that?

    • Andrew
      April 14, 2009 at 5:25 pm

      How else do Ortiz and LeCroy get Triples?

      I've seen Prince Fielder hit an inside-the-park-HR in person, so not much surprises me in the big guys running a lot department.