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| OOTP 21 - Historical Simulations Discuss historical simulations and their results in this forum. |
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04-23-2020, 06:20 PM
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#1 |
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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We're Gonna Win, Twins: A Minnesotan Dynasty (1961-)
Yes, I started this in v20. Yes, life got in the way. Yes, we are playing ball again!
Prologue It's a wonderful year to be a Minnesotan. (Well, they all are. Having spent the majority of my life in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, I can attest to the unrivaled spirit of the state, whose marriage of the picturesque natural world with a vibrant metropolitan center defies anyone to deem it "flyover" territory.) But 1961 is special. Despite recently losing their basketball team to California, the people of Minnesota were repaid in kind with two professional sports franchises in the same year: the expansion Minnesota Vikings, and the subject of this report, a scrappy little relocated team from the nation's capital. First, a little history.  Since 1901, the Washington Senators had been one of the founding members of the American League. Defined by lifelong ace pitcher Walter "The Big Train" Johnson and manager-cum-owner Clark Griffith, the largely-mediocre ballclub won the 1924 World Series and strung together a few decades of otherwise unremarkable baseball. Griffith, elected to the Hall of Fame nine years before his death, passed away in 1955 and left the team to his nephew (and adopted son) Calvin Griffith. With Major League Baseball continuing that proto-American ideal of westwardly manifesting destiny, the younger Griffith sold the Senators' stadium back to the city and began eyeing potential relocation destinations for a team in need of a kick in the pants. San Francisco was an early candidate, but the New York Giants got there first. Eventually, Calvin Griffith set his sights on the Twin Cities. It took some convincing; the American League, understandably so, was initially hesitant to remove the national pastime from the national capital -- especially with a pending expansion, the first since the league's inception. A solution was eventually brokered -- with the league already planning to expand into Minneapolis, the ol' switcheroo was pulled: an expansion team would take over in Washington, and the existing Senators would be the ones to move into Minnesota instead. The team would ultimately play their games in suburban Bloomington (in an outdoor facility shared with the expansion Vikings), but the christening of the team inspired some immediate statewide unity. Not wanting to isolate the fans from the opposite side of the Mississippi River (a factor that played into the departure of the Minneapolis Lakers), Griffith opted to name the team the Minnesota Twins. It's a distinction reflected in the team's first logo: a player decked out in Minneapolis Millers gear shakes the hand of a man from the St. Paul Saints.  The rest, more or less, is history. But it's an interesting history, which begins at a fascinating time in the baseball mythos. In this historical reimagining, it'll be my job to steer this team to more than the two championships that the real-life Twins have come away with since their inaugural season. It's my goal to pen a dynasty that can pair breezy, cleanly-formatted, enjoyable reading with an in-depth look at real artifacts of the time. And, of course, to have a heck of a lot of fun. After all, as legendary Twins manager Tom Kelly said one fateful October evening in 1991, "Oh, hell. It's only a game." Game on. |
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04-23-2020, 06:20 PM
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#2 |
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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The Ground Rules
Last edited by bpbrooksy; 04-23-2020 at 06:29 PM. |
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04-23-2020, 07:06 PM
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#3 |
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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End of Spring Training
April 9, 1961 Before we get into the day-to-day of running this ballclub, this is a great opportunity for a look into the whole organization -- how we're looking at the big-league level, who's coming up soon, and what the general sense of our talent level is. With that, here's a look at our inaugural Opening Day Roster. (Next time around, we'll have a greater sense of direction, and it will be worthwhile to cover the spring training battles/cuts.) All Stats from 1960 CATCHER
Battey is only 26, but almost qualifies as a veteran after debuting in 1955 with the White Sox. He's coming off his first-ever Gold Glove win, while enjoying his best offensive season yet. This is mostly due to his becoming a full-time catcher; prior to last year, he'd never made more than 72 starts. Behind him, Naragon is your prototypical light-hitting backup option. I can't foresee myself ever starting him against lefties. I can foresee him boarding the next train of Minnesota as soon as somebody on the farm demonstrates a lick of talent. INFIELD
Right away, the Killer jumps out as the anchor of the infield. The well-built slugger profiles at first base, but will be seeing playing time at third and left this season. Sticking with that side of the infield, Oriole veteran Billy Gardner will be out at second; he's never been one for the bat, but is one of those scrappy, dependable types who can eat up a full season's worth of ballgames without hesitation. Both Killebrew and Gardner have a platoon man behind them; Meisner, the rookie, will get his fair share of looks, while Mincher projects to get a lot of starts at first as Harmon roves around the diamond. There's not much else to write home about here. Versalles is probably the most interesting guy here, an incredibly green 21-year-old Cuban shortstop with good minor-league numbers and almost no major-league track record. Christian is an old rookie at 29, but earned his spot after a good 1960 in the minors. OUTFIELD
The bulk of our offense resides on the outfield grass. Lemon is the middle-of-the-order complement to Killebrew; he'll likely do the cleanup hitting and give Harmon some much-needed protection in the order. Green is the stolen base threat, with 21 bags from last season, the most of anybody on the roster. Allison is one of the most exciting faces here -- two seasons removed from a Rookie of the Year win, he's just 26 and can hang with the big boppers without striking out all over the place. Joyner is 33 and has never made the show. That will change after a great all-around showing in Double-A last season, where his leadership and hard work made as many headlines as his solid offensive campaign did. He'll be a lefty option off the bench, spelling all three outfielders as needed. ROTATION
The success of our inaugural season will likely fall on the backs of the starting pitching. With only a couple proven offensive weapons, it will be up to this rotation to repeat their performances from last year. All five were with the franchise in 1960, all five are young guys in/entering their prime, and all five can carry this team to some wins. Pascual and Ramos are the 1-2 punch here. Pascual has the edge with two straight All-Star selections and the only strikeout stuff on the entire team. I'm expecting Kralick to take a step forward if he can stay healthy. Don Lee is traditional back-of-the-rotation fodder, and hopefully can get bumped down to #5 is Jim Kaat starts improving. Kaat is still raw, but there's a lot to be excited about there. BULLPEN
This is probably the clearest weak spot of the team. The guys with minor-league numbers aren't young phenoms, they're a group of folks in their 30's who have bounced around various levels for the last decade or so. Almost by default, then, Stobbs and Moore are manning the back end, which isn't exactly the hottest spot for either of them. If the Twins decide to make it interesting this year, addressing the relief may be one of our first goals. |
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04-23-2020, 07:17 PM
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#4 |
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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Looking Ahead
Before we get into some baseball games, let's take a quick peek down at the farm system. First of all, here IS the farm system:
We'll be checking in on the farm every couple of months or so...perhaps 2-3 times a season. The Minnesota system is currently ranked 15th, ahead of only the Kansas City Athletics and the expansion Senators, whose system is less of a farm and more of a garden. The aforementioned 1B Don Mincher is the only top-100 prospect on the Minnesota roster, though reliever Lee Stange (99th) will probably be joining him after the first pitching injury. Utility man Jimmy Hall (81st) and infielder Rich Rollins (58th) are names to remember, but the real star here is Tony Oliva (27th), a recently-signed amateur outfielder, who will be heading directly to Triple-A Syracuse for his first look at professional ball. Around the MLB, some noteworthy names are popping up on farms across the country. SP Bob Locker (Chicago White Sox) is the game's number-one prospect. The top 10 is full of pitchers, actually -- Gaylord Perry, Dean Chance, Mickey Lolich, Wilbur Wood...but don't sleep on C Rico Carty (Milwaukee) or LF Carl Yastrzemski (Boston), either. THE FRONT OFFICE The last key facet to take a look at before the games officially get underway is who I'll be working with. Calvin Griffith is both our owner and my assistant general manager, so we'll be getting to know the Canadian with the money pretty intimately. And speaking of money, I thought it would be worth a glance at the financial figures, as we'll be getting to know those pretty intimately as well - especially in a pre-free agency world. Griffith has given ups a budget of $850k this season, which is actually a fair degree lower than the $1.4 million the books say we had on hand last year. As it stands, we're expecting an end-of-year payroll of somewhere around the $410-430k figure, depending on how trades and all that jazz shake out. It's one of the lowest payrolls in the league, and we're not even projected to turn a profit with it. Thankfully, we have money on hand right now to work with. Our biggest contract is the $34k owed to manager Cookie Lavagetto. Cookie was a four-time All-Star with the Dodgers, back in their Brooklyn days. His last at-bats were in the 1947 Series. He was the skipper for the Senators ever since '57. The top five contracts for ballplayers go like this: LF Jim Lemon ($32k) SP Camilo Pascual ($30k) 2B Billy Gardner ($25k) RF Bob Allison ($24k) 1B Harmon Killebrew ($24k) The usual suspects are at the top, but we gotta find a way to either A) turn Gardner into a Hall of Famer overnight or B) get his contract off the books. He's not a top-five talent by any means, and we have replacement-level options in the system. With that, we've already got ourselves an item on the to-do list! |
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04-23-2020, 07:57 PM
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#5 | ||||||
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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April 13th, 1961
 VS  This is the Yankees' league. Eleven of the last fourteen American League pennants have been brought home by the Bronx Bombers, whose heart of the order features the ever-dangerous M&M Boys. It's already a tough enough lineup to face, but throw in today's Opening Day pitcher -- the Chairman of the Board himself -- and we have a tough task ahead for our first-ever series as the Minnesota Twins. Astute fans will know that the real 1961 season began on the eleventh...but it's been raining on the east coast for the last few days, and Opening Day got pushed back to the 13th. A doubleheader to begin the new team's campaign! Quote:
As such, most of the runs came off youngster Tom Metcalf; the Twins had three doubles as a team, and both Lenny Green and Harmon Killebrew had a pair of hits. The Killer and Bob Allison drove in two runs each -- pretty much exactly how you draw it up. Quote:
The Twins are still mostly the same team they were in D.C., but the club is eager to turn the page and prove themselves at the beginning of new chapter, and turning two wins against the Yankees in their house is quite the way to do it. It was 5-0 Twins all the way, until Yogi Berra corked a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth. They would be the only tallies off Kralick, who went the distance as Pascual had and was two outs shy of a shutout of his own. It was a quick trip through the Bronx, but we still have just under a week left on the east coast. April 14th, 1961 VS  We've got four games on deck with the Baltimore Orioles, including a double-header this Sunday. The O's are in an interesting spot; they just had their first winning season in 15 years, making it all the way to second place, but still finished 7.5 back of the powerhouse Yankees. Their key guys are all pretty young (Steve Barber, Brooks Robinson, and Ron Hansen are all 23 and younger.) We don't have a natural beef with Baltimore -- we play for a different city now -- but their encroachment upon our market back in D.C. is certainly still lingering in the minds of some of our players. Quote:
April 15th, 1961 Quote:
April 16th, 1961 Our second double-header of the week. Thank goodness for the requisite stamina of a 1961 pitching staff, or I'd already have to get the relief shuttle into gear from Syracuse. Quote:
Quote:
Well, after an exciting start in New York, we get swept right out of Memorial Stadium in four games. We have an off-day tomorrow, but one more stop in the east before a very brief homecoming weekend. Week in Review
POWER RANKINGS 1. Baltimore Orioles (5-1) 2. Milwaukee Braves (4-1) 3. Pittsburgh Pirates (4-2) 4. Philadelphia Phillies (4-2) 5. Chicago White Sox (4-2) ...15. Minnesota Twins (2-4) That's a heck of a week for Smith; all the Sox hitters so far are absolutely tearing up the ball. It's a change of pace from the north side of town, where the Cubbies are the majors' only winless team at 0-5. Even the expansion Senators, who replaced us out in the capital, have scratched across a win for themselves. Hopefully Chicago will have cooled down by the time we meet them at the end of the month. Unless otherwise moved, this is likely how I'll be covering this series. One week at a time during the regular season, with brief recaps to give enough day-by-day insight, but also keep the line moving. Last edited by bpbrooksy; 04-23-2020 at 07:58 PM. |
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04-24-2020, 06:50 PM
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#6 | |||||
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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April 18, 1961
VS The Twins are completing the last leg of their week-long east coast road trip, more than happy to be out of Baltimore. It's a two-game set against the Boston Red Sox, who have been a middling team these last few seasons and are looking for their first playoff appearance in 15 years. We've got our one-two punch of Pascual and Kralick lined up, and it would be nice to get out of Fenway with at least one win from either of those guys. Encouragingly, our game one opponent is David Busby, a brand-new righty who gave up six runs in his debut last week. Quote:
What a weird ballgame. Pascual only allowed three hits all day, but walked nine Sox and gave up five unearned runs in an error-laden bottom of the eighth. It was the kind of frame to make a manager scream; I can imagine Cookie having popped a few blood vessels during this one. The Twins had taken a 5-0 lead into the inning, and coughed it all up before getting three outs. Thankfully, the lineup undid their damage in the ninth with three runs. On the day, Allison put up two long balls and scored three times. The other Sox got the news today that six-time All-Star Billy Pierce will be out for a good long while after tearing his UCL six pitches into a game with the Senators. Pierce won 40 games betwen 1956 and 1957, and was showing no signs of slowing down at the age of 34. April 19th, 1961 Quote:
Kralick was on again today, with another nine effective innings. The team tagged Boston starter Tom Brewer for eleven hits and got four walks off him, and Harmon Killebrew hit a first-inning three-run homer to set the tone. It was the first bomb of the year for Harmon, and a highly anticipated one. Now in his third full season, the 24-year-old slugger is being asked to prove how consistent those power numbers can be, after two straight years of .500+ slugging percentages. Fenway was a lot kinder to us than Memorial was. We've swung back around to an even record, and have won every game not played against Baltimore. Now, the real fun begins, as we make our way back to Minnesota for a three-day homestand. It's just about as short as a road trip could be, but major league baseball is coming to Minnesota, and the state's new team is about to make their debut in front of a new crowd of home faithfuls. April 21st, 1961  VS  If you've ever been to the Mall of America, you've been to the burial ground of Metropolitan Stadium. Located in Bloomington -- a suburb of the Twin Cities metro area -- the stadium originated as the home of the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association. Now, it's Twins Territory, although the ~30,000-seat facility will also inaugurate the Vikings later this fall. Quote:
Attendance was just under 10,000 today to see the Minnesota Twins at home for the first time. That's about a third of the capacity, but it was about 50 degrees with strong wind, so we'll let everybody off this time. Still, I'd sure like to get those numbers up. Ramos was fine today, with nine strikeouts, but Burnside was better, and kept getting out of jams. Chuck Hinton and Bob Johnson each had three hits at the very top of the order. After the game, we had a communication from Tom Yawkey, whose club we'd just seen a couple days ago. He's looking for takers on shortstop Pumpsie Green. Not a great look for Yawkey, for whom Green made his team the last to integrate in the majors. Given that he wants Ramos -- an All-Star two years prior -- and that we already have Zoilo Versalles at the position, it's an easy no for me. Green can play second, but we'd need to find a party interested in Gardner, and we'd lose some pitching, which I don't find useful at the moment. Elsewhere in the league, Detroit did okay a trade that brought one-time All-Star Lee Walls, a third baseman, to the Tigers. To the Phillies, then, goes outfielder Sandy Amoros, who's never really had a chance to prove himself since the Dodgers moved out west. April 22nd, 1961 Quote:
It looked as though this would be our first win at the Met, but the Senators had other plans. Jim Kaat pitched a great game, allowing just two runs and even doubling twice. Bob Meisner was 2-for-4, and Killebrew walked twice. We took a 3-2 lead into the top of the ninth, whereupon Ray Moore lost all sense of pitching mechanics, walked the bases full, walked in another guy, then gave up a sac fly and a double that put Washington permanently on top. Not the ideal outing out of your stopper. April 23rd, 1961 Quote:
Before the game, I thought handing the ball to Pascual might be what we needed to crack down on the first home win. As it stands, we wind up getting swept in our first home series against an expansion team that nobody has any real confidence in this season. Daniels tossed a shutout and first baseman Dale Long was responsible for three hits and three driven in. CF Willie Tasby also had multiple RBI. The only Twins with hits today were Versalles, Battey, and Pascual -- three total on the afternoon. Having been unceremoniously booted out of our own park by a team that didn't exist a few months ago, we take an evening trip down to Kansas City, where our two-game series with the A's begins tomorrow night. After that, it's three with the other expansion club, the Los Angeles Angels, out west. Then back home to end the month. Week in Review
POWER RANKINGS 1. Milwaukee Braves (9-2) 2. St. Louis Cardinals (9-3) 3. New York Yankees (7-5) 4. San Francisco Giants (7-5) 5. Cleveland Indians (6-4) ...16. Minnesota Twins (4-7) That 6-4 record in Cleveland is enough to be leading the league right now, and our 4-7 mark is enough to be alone in last place by half a game. Things aren't as bad here as they are for the Dodgers (3-10) or Cubs (2-10), but we need to find some sort of groove soon if we don't want morale to evaporate before we turn our first calendar page. With the month ending next week, I'll get into more of a full-team statistical summary, but it's worth mentioning that 2B Billy Gardner - our biggest trade candidate - has begun his season with an .075/.095/.075 line, -55 OPS+, and -0.6 WAR in all eleven games so far. Teams are just LINING up to get their hands on him! Last edited by bpbrooksy; 04-28-2020 at 01:55 PM. |
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04-25-2020, 02:38 PM
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#7 | ||||||
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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April 24th, 1961
VS So begins a bit of a funny week. We have a two-game set in Kansas City starting Monday, and then a three-game series in L.A. that ends on a Saturday. Which means the end of our week, and our month, will be a Sunday on which we begin a new series. So, you'll have to pardon the interruption into the White Sox series as we review some statistics from this short month. The A's have been bottom-feeders for quite some time now. They haven't had a winning record since 1952, and have lost 100 games or more six times since their last pennant in 1931. They've got a new manager now - Joe Gordon, who spent time coaching the Indians and the Tigers last season. He had quite a solid career. Quote:
Another thrashing, and our fourth straight loss. The offense is settled comfortably into "worst in the league" status, and the pitching isn't helping either. This time, the A's banged out 17 hits, and knocked Kralick out after just five. Wayne Causey was 3-for-3, and Bill Tuttle had four hits. 1B Ron Jackson drove in three and homered. April 25th, 1961 Quote:
The Twins have now dropped five in a row, and even though it was a short series, that makes two sweeps back-to-back. In fact, all five series that Minnesota has featured in so far have been sweeps, one way or the other. It seems like momentum is the name of the game at the moment. This game was tied at five through five. Bob Allison hit his fourth homer of the year, and Zoilo Versalles had a pair of doubles early. Meanwhile, Meisner, Joseph Christian, and Gardner had a run each at the bottom of the order. Kansas City kicked it into gear in the late innings, especially once Cookie handed things over to the relievers. Chuck Stobbs went an inning and a third and was hit for four earned runs. "Get us out of here" isn't the motto you WANT to find yourself repeating, but it's been the one we've had to stick with. Perhaps an expansion team will be the right punching bag for us. April 27th, 1961 VS Off we trot to Los Angeles, as far west as you can go in this league. In terms of notable names, there aren't many to watch out for here. Steve Bilko leads the team in the three triple crown categories (and that includes a .245 batting average.) Ken McBride has a 1.21 ERA and 16 strikeouts, and he's who we'll face first. Former ROTY Albie Pearson is missing a few months with recurring concussion symptoms, and top prospect Dean Chance is just nineteen and very green. Bill Rigney is at the helm of this club. Let's see what he's got. Quote:
A crucial ninth-inning rally saved this one for Minnesota. Down 2-1 in the eighth, the Twins tied it but coughed up a pair in the bottom half. With the score 4-2 Angels, men on the corners, and two out, young 1B prospect Don Mincher walked up for his first plate appearance. A moment later, he had deposited a three-run homer over the wall. The sudden 5-4 lead held, with Moore and Stobbs combining to finish the ninth. Ramos had a nice start today, as well; seven innings, just four hits. Only one strikeout. April 28th, 1961 Quote:
After the Senators beat him up good last time, I would have been worried if the American League's other new squad had done a similar number on Pascual. Thankfully, he looked much more like himself today, with a complete game, eight strikeouts, and only four hits allowed. Allison and the Killer both went yard out of the 3-4 spots. Zoilo had a great day with three hits and two runs scored. He's already got seven doubles, good for third in the circuit. April 29th, 1961 Quote:
A firework show to finish off the series! This was not so much a back-and-forth affair, as the Twins took the lead with a six-run sixth and never gave it up, although they did keep the Angels in the game to the best of their abilities. Once again, the Twins either swept or are swept. It's been over two full weeks of that. This was Zoilo's day out of the two-hole. The young shortstop was 3-for-6 with a homer and a double -- four driven in overall. Jim Lemon also went deep for the first time in 1961. Even Gardner had two hits, two RBI, and two scored. It certainly wasn't Kralick's day -- he got the win despite surendering twelve hits, four walks, and eight earned runs. But the offense staved off their usual anemic habits and kept the team out in front. April 30th, 1961  VSToday is the end of the month. It's also the start of a refreshing full two weeks at home in Bloomington, Minnesota. Ideally, the break from coast-to-coast traveling will allow our guys to settle down and find a groove. It's incredibly early -- this was a short month, after all -- and we're only three games separated from the top of the league, but I still don't love that 7-9 record. It's time to start winning some ballgames. Quote:
Okay, it's ALMOST time to start winning ballgames. Give us a second. Please? Bob Allison hit his sixth home run today, which leads the team by four. Zoilo had two hits; Reno Bertoia got the start at third today and drilled three of his own. Despite playing three backups, Cookie's boys had the lead going into the top of the ninth. Unfortunately, Moore and Stobbs' power combined couldn't hold the Sox scoreless, and a three-run homer -- much like the one we had in Los Angeles -- swung the pendulum for Chicago. It was veteran catcher Sherm Lollar who dealt the decisive blow. Lollar is making more money than anyone else on our roster. Jim Kaat did look good today, though. 7.1 IP, just two runs. And he kept the walks under control, which has been an early problem for the team as a whole. Only four of our eleven guys have a BB/9 under 3.0, and Ray Moore - who Lavagetto is using as the fireman -- has six walks in less than six innings. Week in Review
We don't play Detroit for another couple of weeks, but now's a good time to start thinking through a gameplan to face Cash, who's hitting .348 and leading the Tigers with five bombs. POWER RANKINGS 1. Milwaukee Braves (11-5) 2. Baltimore Orioles (13-7) 3. Philadelphia Phillies (11-7) 4. St. Louis Cardinals (11-6) 5. New York Yankees (12-8) ...14. Minnesota Twins (7-10) The Yanks and Phils are each on four-game win streaks, which has put them each a game out of first in their respective leagues. I'll have a full standings board up for our monthly recap. |
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04-25-2020, 02:59 PM
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#8 |
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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April 1961 - Review
First, a glance at the majors as a whole, before we put on our analytical glasses and take a look at how our 25 guys have been doing, and whether or not we can make any early improvements. AMERICAN LEAGUE
MONTHLY AWARDS
BATTING RACE
HOME RUN RACE
ERA LEADERS
STRIKEOUT LEADERS
A game back of Baltimore, the White Sox sure are looking like an exciting team. They're keeping pace early with the Yankees, the defending American League champions, and find themselves all over the April leaderboards. As you can see, we're nowhere to be found, really, except for Pascual, who leads the majors as a whole in K's. He's on pace for over 250; the post-1900 record is Rube Waddell, with 349 in 1904. NATIONAL LEAGUE
MONTHLY AWARDS
BATTING RACE
HOME RUN RACE
ERA LEADERS
STRIKEOUT LEADERS
Westward expansion isn't looking so hot right now, as both Los Angeles teams are dead last in their leagues. Joining the Dodgers in the cellar of the Senior Circuit are the Cubs, who don't have a whole lot to speak of right now as an organization. Not only is the major league roster pretty bare, but they have the worst farm of any team that existed prior to this season. The Pirates, of course, are baseball's defending world champions, but they've got some early competition within their own state. And Hammerin' Hank Aaron's definitive power stroke is helping to push the Braves up to the top of the NL. Aaron has 227 career homers and would be on pace to break Babe Ruth's home run record this year. |
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04-25-2020, 03:48 PM
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#9 |
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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April 1961 - Twins Review
THE STARTING LINEUP
Why Cookie Lavagetto hasn't given Reno Bertoia or Billy Consolo more of a look yet, I'm not sure. Bertoia has two starts, and Consolo's one strikeout is his entire batting line, but both of them play second base and both of them at least deserve a chance to prove that they're better than a heavily slumping Gardner. I've already tagged Gardner as the guy I'd like most to get off the books...but, in fairness to Cookie, he has to play to get those numbers up and attract any potential suitors. I'll start ringing some phones soon. The more concerning slump is that of Earl Battey. Battey's barely hitting a lick, with only six hits to his ledger so far. He's coming off a Gold Glove win, and at just 26, this season looked like it might be the start of his prime. He hit well last season (.270/.346/.427, 111 wRC+) but it's not clicking yet this year. However, he's definitely got a much longer leash than some of the more unproven folks on the roster. Green and Versalles are packing a punch at the top of the order, with a combined 22 runs thanks to their extra-base pop (15 combined XBH.) Somebody needs to refresh Zoilo's memory on what the stolen base sign is, though. He's taken off six times and been caught five. Easy, tiger. Allison is cleaning up, all right. Those numbers speak for themselves in the early going. And while Killebrew's home run power hasn't taken off yet, opposing pitchers still know what's good for them; his 17.8 BB% and .411 OBP both lead the team. THE BENCH
Mincher is the exciting player here. At age 22, he was named the #60 prospect before the start of the season. He's your prototypical first baseman, tall, well-built, not very rangey, with plenty of power. As it stands, we've got a first baseman matching that description (although he's not particularly tall for a major-leaguer, at 5'11".) Technically, Harmon can play left field and third. But once Lemon starts heating up, we won't want to displace him. That leaves third, which is Bob Meisner's corner at the moment. Meisner isn't much of a hitter, but his infield defense is a lot more encouraging than Harmon's would be on the other side of the bases. What's more, Mincher looks decidedly terrible in the outfield during warm-ups. He doesn't read the ball well, he doesn't have the legs to get there, and he can't throw guys out, either. Hence -- first base. We have plenty of years of Mincher ahead of us if we want him, so this isn't an immediate problem. I will be interested to see how we wind up utilizing him. Nobody else has really gotten into enough games to warrant a particularly deep look here. Hal Naragon is on the team almost exclusively because he bats lefty. He's been a backup man his whole life. Down at Triple-A Syracuse, we have two catching options that are, if you'll excuse the pun, catching my eye.
Hagan is a young lefty with excellent defense, which is more or less the package that Naragon is failing to live up to. Franchi plays everywhere, even center field, and the report from Syracuse manager Steve Dominguez is that he's got the drive to excel pretty much anywhere on the field. Franchi is also hitting well in the early goings. At 25, this is his first appearance at the Triple-A level. I think either of those guys could probably make their way upstairs soon. Naragon has the right to refuse assignment, so we might do our diligence on him to see if we can't find him a home elsewhere and get a younger guy with more promise onto the roster. THE STARTING ROTATION
We're kind of all over the place here. As a collective, the rotation has a 4.34 ERA, which is sixth in the league. I trust everybody on this list, but right now only Pascual and Kaat have delivered any sort of consistency. Kralick, I think, has All-Star potential, but not when his opponents are hitting nearly .300 off him. Kaat is running a 1.03 WHIP, even having faced the White Sox and the Orioles in three starts. We've already touched on Pascual's strikeouts, but that 2.01 ERA is pretty shiny, as well. THE BULLPEN
Here's the most obvious weak spot, as anticipated. It's hard to say whether or not Johnnie Stott's nice start has anything to do with his talent level, or whether or not he's managed to escape just five innings with a mostly clean record. There's problems all over here; everybody but Stott is 29 or older, our back-end guys (Moore and Stobbs) have been our worst performers, and pretty much everybody but Moore is letting in their inherited runners. When we get into jams, the bleeding continues. Building a bullpen is a lot easier said than done in this day and age. There are exactly three professional relievers who find themselves without a team - Connie Johnson, Freddy Rodriguez, and Ben Wade. All of them are in their late 30's, and all of them want a major-league deal of at least $20k. I'm not in the business of spending that kind of money when we could just start a carousel of minor-league arms. That said, the carousel is looking pretty dry on horses, too. Jose Mejias has the best numbers out of the Syracuse bullpen (2.63 ERA in 13.2 IP), but I can't say that he looks completely ready for big-league action yet, and his poor control is the opposite of what we need. ~~~ I think next month we'll do a little sweep over the farm, but they don't have enough games under their belt yet for any hard-hitting analysis. As we flip the page to May, we have a couple of tasks to throw on the burners. Find a suitor for Billy Gardner so we don't have to eat the contract, see if anyone wants a cheap and lightly used Hal Naragon, and find a way to get creative about the bullpen. Oh, yeah, and win some ballgames. But that's Cookie's job. |
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04-25-2020, 11:47 PM
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#10 |
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jan 2019
Posts: 74
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Great stuff
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04-26-2020, 03:27 PM
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#11 | |||||||
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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May 1st, 1961
We now resume our regularly-scheduled programming with our series finale against Chicago. It's the first of May now, and we're setting up shop at home for the first time all year. We won't be leaving Metropolitan Stadium until April 15th, and even then, it's a quick jump down to Chicago for another set at Comiskey. In fact, we'll only be on the road for seven total days this month. That'll feel good. Hopefully we can make the most of it! Quote:
Finally, a series split. This was just a good old-fashioned ballgame. No errors, a tight score, 15 combined hits. Zoilo took a knuckler over the wall in the third for his second homer of the season. That would put us in front for good on the afternoon. After the game, we dropped a line with Billy Gardner's name on it into the water, but nobody's biting right now. I figured as much. May 2nd, 1961 VS Next up is three afternoon games with the Yankees, who are a game and a half back of Baltimore. Mickey Mantle is heating up for them, and Yogi Berra is on a 10-game hitting streak. Only Curt Flood (15 games) has a longer active mark. Quote:
Ramos only lasted four innings today; the Yanks were up 6-1 when he departed. It had a lot to do with Mantle, who went 3-for-5 with a triple, homer, three knocked in, and three runs. It wasn't all Mantle; Roger Maris was the only New York player without a hit, and the Yankees had 13 on the day. Meanwhile, Earl Battey's first homer of the season and a pinch-hit single from Joseph Christian accounted for the only Minnesota runs this afternoon. Elsewhere in the league, Norm Cash hit three homers against the Senators. Cash now has the major-league lead with a 1.229 OPS. The 26-year-old is jonesing for his first All-Star Game appearance. A couple cursory phone calls shows no interest where Naragon is concerned, either. I'm debating running him along the waiver wire if Syracuse doesn't sound like a dream vacation to him. May 3rd, 1961 Quote:
Good matchup today. Pascual vs. Ralph Terry. Both teams traded blows all afternoon. The Yankees scored twice in the second; the Twins scored twice in the third. 3-2 Twins after six, tied up after seven. Both teams scored a pair in their half of the ninth. Ol' Moose Skowron did most of the damage, with a double and a pair of homers, including the go-ahead shot off Stobbs in the Yankee tenth. Gardner actually showed up today, going 2-for-4 with a homer and two knocked in. Five different players made errors today, but the best fielding moment was in the visiting ninth. With two outs, Elston Howard singled to left, and Tony Kubek rushed home with what would have been the go-ahead score. Lemon gunned him down and left the door open for a small, but ultimately pointless, comeback. May 4th, 1961 Quote:
Kralick gave up another six runs; one in each of the first three innings, then three in the eighth for good measure. With our help, the Yankees have leapfrogged their way to first place in the American League. Two notable moments today - Bob Turley walked seven hitters, including two free passes each to Allison, Lemon, and Meisner. He still gets the win. Mantle threw out Zoilo at home to make up for yesterday, but threw out his arm in the process. Looks like he'll miss just a couple of days. May 5th, 1961 VSThe Yankees are heading off to Los Angeles. In their stead come their biggest rivals, the Boston Red Sox, who split in Kansas City earlier this week and got a day off yesterday to make their way up here. Before the game, we made our first transaction of the year. ROSTER MOVE
To my surprise, Naragon agreed to head back down and play with the Chiefs. He went 0-for-4 against the Yankees in the series finale, and I decided to have the conversation then. I think Hal was afraid that he might not see any more major-league action if he forced our hand and won a release. This way, at least, he's still on a 40-man roster and has a path back up in the event of injuries. Franchi's contract was selected, and he will start lending his talents to the defense. I imagine he'll be floating around positionally as Cookie sees fit, while also getting the start behind the plate every few days. Now for the Red Sox. Quote:
Another extra-inning loss. It looked like a comeback win; we were down 3-0 in the seventh inning and put four on the board. Kaat pitched well, but Moore and Stobbs combined to let in the tying run in the ninth. Dixon took over for the tenth, and 1B Vic Wertz led things off with a triple. Not much you can do after that. Allison and Meisner each had three hits. May 6th, 1961 Quote:
Our four-game skid is over, as a five-run eighth inning caps off our first decisive win since Los Angeles. Extra-bases littered the field today, as Allison and Killebrew each had doubles, with Meisner adding two of his own. Zoilo homered, Green homered, and Don Mincher had another pinch-hit home run -- this time a grand slam. Don Lee has won back-to-back games now, with five runs allowed in his last fifteen innings. His ERA has gone from 9.53 to 5.81 in his last two starts. News from the Yankees...starter Bill Stafford is just 21 but he's already suffered a major arm injury; a partially torn UCL will have him missing the rest of the 1961 campaign. In the bullpen, reliever Thomas McNulty will be out of action for a few months with a torn rotator cuff. To make up for this, Yogi Berra hit three home runs and Elston Howard had five hits in their win against the Angels. May 7th, 1961 Looking for a series win today against the Red Sox. Quote:
No such luck, although this was a good game. Both pitchers traded zeroes until the top of the ninth, when 2B Chuck Schilling got his third hit of the day, a tie-breaking two-run single that would prove the only score for either side. Zoilo would collect three hits for us today (he's now hitting .311), but would be stranded each time. Decent work for Ramos, though, who can't get a win yet but at least hung in there all day today. Week in Review
What a ridiculous week for Howard, who almost never left the batter's box dissatisfied all week long. POWER RANKINGS
The Junior Circuit is the hot one right now, with the Yankees on a six-game roll and Detroit inserting themselves into the conversation with five straight wins. Meanwhile, the White Sox have dropped seven in a row and lost all of their steam, falling into seventh place. Last edited by bpbrooksy; 04-27-2020 at 03:39 PM. |
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04-27-2020, 03:38 PM
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#12 | ||||||
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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May 9th, 1961
VS The Orioles had a hold on first place early, but the Yankees are clicking and have pushed Baltimore out to second place, where they have a half-game cushion over Boston and Detroit. We're a square five games behind the O's, and are one of just three teams in the major leagues still looking for double-digit wins (both Los Angeles teams are at 8-16.) It looks like we're getting Barber, Dick Hall, and Carlos Estrada in this series, which is not a group to be trifled with. We're lined up to counter with Pascual, Kralick, and Kaat. Last time out, of course, we were swept; we'll see how this club contends with Memorial Stadium. Quote:
Pascual was good today, and Jim Lemon was even better. The former had a complete game with just three hits allowed (although six more walks today is getting me a fair bit worried about his recurring control issues this season.) The latter brought home four of the Twins' five runs, including an RBI triple and a three-run homer. That brings his slugging percentage up to an even .400, despite a .225 average. At 33, Lemon is definitely playing like the oldest member of the starting lineup (although Gardner does have him by a few months.) May 9th, 1961 Before the game, we had a communique from the third-place Milwaukee Braves, and their general manager, relative youngster John McHale. The Braves have a good staff but they want to get better and make a run at the pennant. They want Pedro Ramos from us. Ramos, to this point, is 0-4 with an even 5.00 ERA; clearly, the Braves are looking to buy low here. They are willing to send back a major-league second baseman, though, which is a position that we need help at. However, the man in question is 28-year-old rookie Ed Charles, who spent nearly four full years in Triple-A without working his way up. In five big-league plate appearances, he's got a single hit and three strikeouts. We're not interested right now; I have more faith in Ramos than to dump him off at the first sign of trouble. Quote:
This was a frustrating one, as Minnesota had a 5-2 lead after six, and a one-run lead going into the top of the ninth. Ray Moore blew his second save of the year. Zoilo went 3-for-4 with two runs scored; Battey had two hits and drove in two, and Bob Meisner hit his first homer of the year. Meisner's on a roll right now, with a .317 average, seven doubles, and one of the higher OPS marks on the team. May 11th, 1961 Quote:
Baltimore took the series, as we suffered a strikingly similar defeat two days in a row. This time, the game was tied at four in the ninth -- Harmon had evened the score with a solo shot in the seventh, his third of 1961. But a ninth-inning rally, complete with three walks, put a trio of runs on the board for Baltimore before the Twins managed to get anyone out. The O's are now 6-1 against us on the year, and are already licking their chops for June, when we play them six times. Jim Kaat walked six today and had to leave the game after six innings. Let's hope things aren't serious there. We already have one of the worst staffs in the American League. May 12th, 1961 VSWe enter this series tied for dead last in the league. Tied with who? Today's competition, the expansion Angels. Needless to say, Bill Rigney's new team is not doing too much to break the tradition of fresh clubs needing a bit of time to get up to speed with the rest of the league. Nevertheless, our starters still have Steve Bilko to contend with. He's leading the league with 15 homers and 29 RBI. Bilko has never hit more than 21 in a season - that happened with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1953. Now, the righty is on pace to break the record. We'll see if he can keep up the pace into the summer...then there will be something interesting to watch. Quote:
That's three -- count em, three -- days in a row where the Twins have lost it in the ninth inning. Today, we were up 5-3, and then Pedro Ramos forgot how to keep the ball down in the zone. Ken Hunt led off the inning with a homer to bring it within one. A walk and a single later, there were men on the corners to set up Mickey Harrington's game-tying sac fly. After walking Eddie Yost, Ramos had to deal with Bilko. Bilko didn't have to "deal" with anything; he got a 1-0 pitch down the pipe and shot it into the stands for his 16th homer of the season. Minnesota had five runs but only four hits. One of them was a homer by Ramos himself. He goes to 0-5 on the year. Here's Pedro Ramos' win-loss records in each year of his career: 1955: 5-11 1956: 12-10 1957: 12-16 1958: 14-18 (led the AL) 1959: 13-19 (led the AL) 1960: 11-18 (led the AL) He also led the league in home runs allowed with 43 in '57 and 38 in '58. This year he's on pace to go 0-29. And yet, with all that, he was still an All-Star two seasons ago. He just can't buy a win to save his life. Our trainer, Chris Brinkman, informed us after the game that Kitty has a calf strain. Nothing serious. He should be able to make his next start, and if not, it will only be pushed back a day. May 13th, 1961 Quote:
Just our second win this week. If you can believe it, our stopper Moore didn't blow up in the ninth, recording two clean outs and lowering that ERA down to a sparkling 9.49. Lee actually had quite a nice game, with just one earned run allowed, two walks, and nine strikeouts. He almost completed the game, but ran it up to 117 pitches, and Cookie went to the pen. The six runs were a station-to-station effort, with Zoilo's 12th double of the year the only extra-base hit. Green was 3-for-3, and he and Versalles each scored two runs. Gardner and Lee scored the other two runs. May 14th, 1961 Quote:
We manage to win the series, on the back of Pascual's crisp start (9 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 9 K.) Camilo Pascual now has 48 strikeouts, which is eight ahead of Jim Bunning for best in the American League. Zoilo went 3-for-5, and even Billy Gardner had three hits and 3 RBI. Bob Allison hit his team-leading 7th home run. Fans are chattering about where Killebrew's power has gone, as the 24-year-old had 73 homers combined over the last two seasons, and projects to hit less than 20 this year. He does have more walks than strikeouts, which might mean that he's just not seeing anything decent yet. Week in Review
Sound familiar? Cash and Bailey are the Players of the Week again, two weeks after the first time they shared the honor together. Cash hit four homers in two days, and now sits just one dinger back of Bilko in the American League. POWER RANKINGS 1. Philadelphia Phillies (20-11) 2. Baltimore Orioles (20-13) 3. New York Yankees (20-13) 4. Detroit Tigers (19-14) 5. San Francisco Giants (17-12) ...15. Minnesota Twins (12-18) The Phillies have overtaken first place in the National League. Turk Farrell has a 2.02 ERA for them, and John Buzhardt has a 5-1 record. They've won their last six, which is the best active streak right now. The Yankees and Orioles may be duking it out all summer long. Last season they finished first and second, respectively, and thus far have picked it up right where they left off. ~~~ That homestand was...really short-lived. What's more, we went 5-9 on it. Thankfully, we're just on the road for a couple days before we get another week at the Met. It's a pair of night games in Chicago - then we get a day off on Wednesday to come back up here. We're 5-12 at home and 7-6 on the road, so maybe the change of scenery can spark us. |
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04-27-2020, 05:20 PM
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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May 15th, 1961
VSThe team headed into Chicago on getaway day last night. We don't play until 8:05 this evening, so we had a chance to take in some of the sights. I suppose the White Sox are our natural rival now; they're certainly the closest team geographically. Al Lopez is a great manager. He hasn't had a losing record in a decade, and his 1954 Indians won 111 games. He also holds the great distinction of being the only man to unseat the Yankees for the pennant since 1949 - and he's done it twice. This year, however, the Sox are 14-17 and five games back after a bit of a slow start. We have the chance to jump them in the standings if we can put together a pair of wins here. Quote:
Yet another tough late loss. Jim Landis started the scoring with an RBI double in the third. Killebrew's fourth homer tied it in the fourth inning. From there, the game settled down, with no scores until Sherm Lollar's walk-off single in the ninth. The Twins only got three hits today, and wasted a nice start from Kralick. That's Moore's fourth loss of the year. His 9.22 ERA is less than dazzling. Meanwhile, we've got lefty Wally Seward (1.42 ERA, 5.7 K/9) and rookie Johnnie Stott (1.17 ERA, 7.2 IP) out in the front end of the bullpen. I'd like to see more of Stott, personally, but it's not my call. However, Cookie is flexible and would probably be willing to heed my advice if I asked him. I think we'll have that conversation on Thursday while we're heading back to Metropolitan Stadium. Quote:
Well, at least we got this heartbreaker out of the way early? Ray Moore is 34 years old. He had a 2.88 ERA and 13 saves for us last year. That was probably his best season ever, and this is easily shaping up to be his worst. We were up 2-0 in the bottom of the eighth, and after Kaat allowed the Sox to tie the game, Moore came in and gave them three more. He's officially forced my hand, having almost single-handedly blown the whole trip to Chicago. 26-year-old Bob Meisner homered today and seems to be developing into something. He's hitting .297/.385/.436, and his 0.9 WAR is second only to Versalles, who has the edge thanks to a little more power and a little more surehandedness in the diamond. May 18th, 1961 VSCookie and I talked yesterday and he's agreed to give Stott a look during the later innings. We'll see if that makes anything better in this next series. The Athletics are in town; currently fifth and four out of first. We lost both games at Municipal Stadium back in April, and we have Pedro Ramos - the Winless Wonder - taking the ball first. Quote:
It's a walk-off winner for the Twins! With the score tied at two in the bottom of the ninth, Harmon Killebrew took baseball legend Don Larsen deep for a game-winning two-run homer. It was a solid back-and-forth game, with the A's taking the lead twice and the Twins eventually knotting the score both times. Ramos struck out eight through seven innings, and still couldn't get himself his first win of the year. Johnnie Stott pitched four outs, allowed two hits, and struck out two A's. Allison also homered in this one. He has eight to lead the team, and Harm is behind him with five now. Bilko hasn't homered since we played the Angels, but still leads the league. May 19th, 1961 Quote:
No runs to speak of today for the Twins, who outhit the A's 7-6 but lost by two. Pascual only walked one today, but he only struck out three, too. Just over 6,000 present today. That's one of our higher marks, but it was also just 50 degrees this evening. Minnesotans are hardy, but most of them are waiting until it warms up to head down to the park. May 20th, 1961 Quote:
Another walk-off, and a series win for Minnesota! It's our second series win in the last three series. This one was a bit of a heart-pounder. Both teams scored in the first, and then nobody scored until the ninth with the exception of an RBI single for Battey in the middle innings. Kralick had gone seven strong, and Moore had pitched a clean eighth, so Cookie ran him back out there for the ninth, but Moore gave up a run and the A's had tied it. It didn't take long to uneven the score, though - with Larsen pitching in the home ninth, Bob Meisner notched a walk-off double. His 16th RBI of the year, and the team's second walk-off of the series. Despite the exciting win, Minnesota is still last in the league with a .400 winning percentage - the same as Washington's. We're eight back and any hopes of contention this year have pretty much evaporated. But with no draft and no free agency, there's no real incentive for the team to be tanking; so we'll continue to try and improve this team little by little. May 20th, 1961  VSIt's Sunday afternoon, and the Clevelanders have come to town. It's the first time we're squaring up with the Indians this year. We're playing a doubleheader today, then ending the series on Monday afternoon. The Indians are 18-17 and four back of the first-place Orioles. They're coming off a two-game sweep of the Yankees at home, and have won their last three. They're a few years removed from Al Lopez's pennant-winning 1954 team, and it's been 13 years since they won it all in 1948. Quote:
Not our best out there today. The Indians has a lot of extra-base hits, and we left a lot of men on base, scoring just three late runs despite our 2-7 hitters reaching base 10 combined times. Quote:
Second verse, same as the first. Cookie Lavagetto is following the letter of the law, but not really the spirit of it. I asked him to move Stott into the ninth inning because Moore was blowing too many games. His response was to then move Moore to the eighth inning, where he's pretty much just as dangerous...to us. The same held true today, as Moore earned his sixth loss of the young campaign and blew a 2-1 lead to the Indians. The Twins got 11 hits off Cleveland starter Bill Dailey, who packed his bags for Triple-A Salt Lake City after the game was over. Meisner had three knocks, one of them a double, and is now hitting .303. Week in Review
Woodling is one of a handful of bright spots for the Senators, who have already given up 230 runs as team. For perspective, we're a game behind the ninth-place Senators, and have given up 180. Our problems are in the offense, whose 142 runs scored is second-worst in the AL. POWER RANKINGS 1. San Francisco Giants (22-13) 2. Baltimore Orioles (26-15) 3. Boston Red Sox (22-16) 4. Cincinnati Reds (20-15) 5. Cleveland Indians (20-17) ...17. Minnesota Twins (14-23) In the power rankings, we are ahead of only the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have one fewer win than we do. The Indians have won four in a row and are tied with the Yankees and Tigers for third, but the Orioles keep plugging along and have pushed their lead to 2.5 above Boston, the new second-place squad. In the National League, the Giants have taken four in a row and eight of their last ten, and occupy first place. The Phillies, who had that post last week, have dropped five straight. Last edited by bpbrooksy; 04-27-2020 at 05:22 PM. |
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04-28-2020, 02:13 PM
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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May 22nd, 1961
Time to finish things up with the Cleveland Indians. After sweeping the doubleheader yesterday, the Tribe is sending up Barry Latman, with his 6-1 record and 2.30 ERA. We're countering with Jackie Collum, who's getting a spot start to give the rotation a bit of a break. After the game today, we get the night off. The Tigers will be here for the first time tomorrow night, and then we head off to Washington on the first leg of a long road trip - over two weeks. Quote:
Dear lord. Well, let's get this one out of the way quickly. Jackie Collum pitched 2.1 innings, Wally Seward then pitched 4.1, and Sonny Dixon rattled off 1.2 innings of his own. They each gave up an even six earned runs. Cleveland scored four in the first, two each in the third and fourth innings, another in the fifth, two in the sixth, one in the seventh, and three each in the eighth and ninth. But, boy, oh, boy, that second inning was fun! It was a banner day for the Cleveland offense, who did some stat-padding on the way out of town. Tito Francona hit three homers, scored five times, and drove in six. Willie Kirkland and John Romano had three hits each, four runs each, and a combined five RBI. Joe Morgan entered the game as a pinch-hitter and still knocked in three runs. The only Indians without hits were 3B Bubba Phillips (for whom Morgan hit) and reliever Bobby Locke, who threw the last couple innings and only had one at-bat. On the bright side of things, a couple of Twins had good days as well. Lenny Green reached base five times (three hits and two walks.) Two of those hits were homers, and he drove in four, also stealing a base. Bob Meisner, Billy Gardner, and Bob Allison all doubled. That brings Collum's ERA to 10.93, Seward's to 6.17, and Dixon's to 19.64 (great year.) Fixing this bullpen is a mystery to me; there aren't any surefire relief prospects anywhere in the system, really, but before we head out on this road trip I'm going to have to make a move just for the sake of morale. In fact, let me take the time now to go over a couple of minor-league options to mull over.
After a look through the system, and a phone call with Syracuse manager Steve Dominguez, I think these two guys are our best options. Truthfully, I could see both of them making replacements in our major-league bullpen soon, but I think I'll still be staggering their promotions. Don't want to move too many pieces around at once just yet. Mejias is 21 years old and has risen rapidly through the minors. He put up a five-win season at age 19 in the developmental league, then jumped from Single-A ball to Triple-A in one season. The control is an issue, but it's been an issue up here, as well - the difference being that Mejias hasn't been letting runs in down at Syracuse. Strzyzewski has been a swing-man. He's also 21, but right-handed, and has had a similar trajectory to Mejias. He looks sort of subpar across the board, but I'd almost rather have that than what we have now, which is promise marred by one glaring flaw, or incredible inconsistency. I'll talk with Michael LaFlamme (my scout) and my director of player development during the Detroit series so we can make a decision and make sure the new guy is in Washington on Friday. We won't be coming home for a while. And speaking of not coming home, Bob Gibson not only held the Giants scoreless today, he blanked them in the hit column, too. That's right, the 25-year-old St. Louis righty threw a no-hitter today against San Francisco, striking out ten. It's the first no-hitter in the big leagues since Warren Spahn no-hit the Phillies in September of last year. May 23rd, 1961  VSA warm welcome to the Detroit Tigers, the last new team for us to face in 1961. The Tigers are alone in fifth place, a half-game behind New York and two games up on the Athletics, their most recent opponents. The face of their franchise is none other than Norm Cash, who we've been seeing a lot in the papers lately. Cash has been worth 4.1 WAR already this season, which is far and away the best mark in the leagues (the next closest is RF Jackie Jensen from Boston, at 2.6.) Cash is currently on a triple-crown pace, leading the league with a .386 average, 17 home runs, and 34 RBI. He's one bomb ahead of Steve Bilko, who hasn't homered in two weeks. Cash has homered twice this week, and even though the home run race is in a valley right now, he's still on pace for over sixty. The Tigers are piloted by Bob Scheffing. This is his first year with the Tigers, after being let go by the Chicago Cubs at the end of the 1959 season. The Tigers were mostly all right in the 50's, but never really took the next step. Quote:
We did it! We got Pedro Ramos a win! The team looked as solid as they have all year today, letting Ramos go to work, and supplementing him with a few runs. Ramos pitched a complete game, walked just two, and struck out nine. That ERA has gone down over a full run over the last couple outings, and he now has a much more respectable 4.62 mark. That makes two good starts in a row for him (7 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K last time out vs. the Athletics), so maybe he's gotten all of the duds out of the way and will be lights-out down from here on in. Killebrew launched his 6th homer of the year and had two RBI tonight. Not much of a fight over the baseball, as we had under 4,200 in attendance. Yikes. Elsewhere, reliever Mike Fornieles -- named the best fireman in baseball by Sporting News last season -- will be out for the year with a torn UCL. With the Red Sox last season, Fornieles pitched in a league-leading 70 games, had a 10-5 record with 13 saves, and a 2.64 ERA. This year, he had a 6.62 ERA in 17.2 innings...perhaps an early sign that his arm was about to give out. May 24th, 1961 Quote:
Woof. Another game lost in the ninth by the Twins. Today we had a 4-1 lead, a lead that lasted through a rain delay of nearly an hour and a half. Killebrew had a two-run homer (7) in a three-run first inning, and Pascual allowed ten hits but held the Tigers to a single run. Then, the dynamic duo of Moore and Stobbs gave up three runs in the ninth, letting Detroit tie the game. Zeroes went up on the board until the 12th, when Jackie Collum handed the Tigers another one, leaving fans everywhere to wonder where in the world Johnnie Stott was. Stott was clearly rested - he hasn't pitched since the Cleveland series. After the game I made a particularly forceful phone call regarding what Cookie and I had talked about last week. May 25th, 1961 Quote:
With a close one this afternoon, the Twins got just their second series win of the month (the other coming against the Angels two weeks ago.) We're still nine games under .500, but at least we're in a tie for last with Washington, instead of being the worst team in the league outright. Kralick was great today - four hits, one run, seven strikeouts. Stott pitched the eighth and got the win, because Killebrew homered off Bunning in the home eighth to break a 1-1 tie that had held since the fourth. Killebrew homered in every game this series, driving in five runs for Minnesota. The power stroke is starting to pick up as the weather warms, and he's got a shot to hit 30 again. At Yankee Stadium, 36-year-old Yogi Berra got his 2,000th major-league hit. His lifetime average is .289 and he has 327 career homers. Before we ship out, it's decision time. The decision was informed by Jackie Collum's rough week. As Collum is a lefty, I'm going to be canning him and calling up Mejias. ROSTER MOVE
My assumption from our most recent conversation is that Mejias will pitch mostly in middle relief, and will pick up mop-up duty on our worse days. Off to Washington, and a very familiar park... May 26th, 1961 VS The team was excited to head back to Griffith Stadium this weekend, where almost the whole club remembers calling home just last year. It's a bit of a bizarre feeling to see another team playing in your ballpark, but these are the Senators now. At 10.5 games back each, this is sure to be a thrilling set to see who sticks in last place by the end of the weekend. Quote:
It feels like Kaat has been weirdly absent this season; he's got over 50 innings in the books so far, but just two decisions to show for it. He's been pitching okay, but today was one of his weaker outings, with five runs in six and a third. Dick Donovan was hard to reach today; only Bob Allison was able to get anything off him, with a two-run double in the sixth. May 27th, 1961 Quote:
The battle for the basement will come down to a rubber match, as Minnesota was able to take the second game against the Senators. Stott pitched the eighth and ninth, allowed only one hit, and struck out two -- his first big-league save in the books. Zoilo and Killebrew each drove in a pair today. Zoilo has that average up at .324, best on the team. This is his first full season (barring injury, of course) and he's really been making the most of it so far. News out of Los Angeles...top prospect Dean Chance has a torn meniscus and they're shutting him down for the year. At just 19, he's got plenty of time to recover. May 28th, 1961 Quote:
Washington comes out on top, and the series ends with the Senators in ninth and the Twins dead last in the AL. It was a 3-3 game in the home eighth - Gene Green and Billy Klaus had both hit solo homers, and Tom Sturdivant helped his own cause with an RBI single. Ramos, for his part, had doubled in a run; Battey singled in a runner, and Killebrew hit his ninth homer of the year. Then Dale Long came up with two on. A wide-eyed Stott served up a meatball, and Long sent it back to the kitchens. 6-3 Senators. The loss went to Ramos, who had let the two men on base in the first place. Week in Review
POWER RANKINGS 1. San Francisco Giants (25-15) 2. Boston Red Sox (25-19) 3. Pittsburgh Pirates (22-19) 4. Baltimore Orioles (29-20) 5. Philadelphia Phillies (24-18) ...17. Minnesota Twins (17-27) We somehow keep managing to avoid hitting rock bottom in the power rankings, thanks almost exclusively to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Nobody has created any separation yet in either league, which means we've got a fun couple of races to watch. Both the Orioles and the Giants still lead their leagues. Boston and New York are right there, as are the Phillies and Reds. With the month coming to a close, we'll grab a look at the full standings soon. Last edited by bpbrooksy; 04-30-2020 at 12:53 PM. |
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04-28-2020, 02:31 PM
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#15 | |||
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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May 30th, 1961
VSThis will be a quick installment - just two days - as the month of May expires as our quick series in Cleveland finishes. At that point I'll go over the league again, check out the leaderboards, and dive into how the team has been doing on an individual level. This time around we'll also be looking into the farm system and checking in on our top prospects. First, though, it's time for Cleveland. We had Monday off, and now we're playing three rapid-fire games against the Indians. Two on Tuesday, then the finale on Wednesday. We won't be seeing these guys again until after the All-Star break. Speaking of which, voting has opened and Camilo Pascual finds himself leading the voting for starting pitchers. It's a bit of a surprise that the All-Star Game starting arm could come out of our staff, but Pascual's got a 2.06 ERA (second in the AL) and 58 strikeouts (second as well.) On the off-day, Roger Maris hit three home runs for New York. He's suddenly jumped into the home run race, with 17 on the year. That's just one behind Steve Bilko. Another big story came out of Los Angeles yesterday. Rumors are swirling that Duke Snider doesn't want to be a Dodger anymore. It's a blow to the fans; Snider debuted in 1947 (certainly a notable year for Brookyln debuts) and has logged over 1,700 games with the franchise. A 7-time All-Star, Snider has reason to be unhappy with his playing time this year, having been limited to just three starts while hitting .156. Snider is making $46k, so it's not like we'll be having anything to do with him. Quote:
Bit of an odd one, this first game. Each team had a three-run frame in the middle innings, and there were six combined runs in the ninth. Lenny Green had two hits and three RBI. An ice-cold Jim Lemon hit his third homer of the year, a three-run blast in the ninth. Earl Battey had his second long ball, and everybody but Meisner notched a hit. Quote:
The middle of the Cleveland order killed us almost as much as starter Jim Perry did. Willie Kirkland and Tito Francona accounted for all five runs, and Woodie Held and Bubba Phillips were responsible for all five RBI. Today ended a streak of nine straight games with a run scored for Harmon Killebrew, who crossed home fifteen times this month. It was the third shutout of the month for the team. We haven't pitched a shutout of our own since the first game of our Opening Day double-header at Yankee Stadium. At Connie Mack Stadium, Philadelphia 1B Pancho Herrera hit for the cycle, capping it off with a two-run single in the seventh. May 31st, 1961 Quote:
We end the month on a high note, taking the series on the road in Cleveland. Kitty Kaat got his first win of the year, needing 130 pitches to wrap things up. Bill Allison had a great day, with two doubles and a homer. Killebrew hit one of his own - he now leads the club with 10. He had eight dingers this month after just two in all of April. All right...time to take stock! Last edited by bpbrooksy; 04-28-2020 at 02:46 PM. |
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04-28-2020, 02:45 PM
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#16 |
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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May 1961 - Review
AMERICAN LEAGUE
MONTHLY AWARDS
BATTING RACE
HOME RUN RACE
ERA LEADERS
STRIKEOUT LEADERS
The Orioles are still on top, but the Yankees are only a half-game back, and the Red Sox are hot on their heels. The first division are all within three games of each other, and even Kansas City and Los Angeles are close despite losing records. Then there's us, all the way at the bottom with an 8.5-game deficit. I wonder why people aren't coming... NATIONAL LEAGUE
MONTHLY AWARDS
BATTING RACE
HOME RUN RACE
ERA LEADERS
STRIKEOUT LEADERS
The last time we looked at the standings, the Braves were atop the National League. How the mighty have fallen! The team went 7-21 in May, and they're playing a little better than their record actually shows, but that's not gonna keep them out of the cellar. Don Cardwell is coming out of nowhere with an early Cy Young bid. His previous career-high ERA+ was 88, last season between Philadelphia and Chicago. This year? It's up at 2.49. Is the College of Coaches...working? |
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04-28-2020, 03:30 PM
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#17 |
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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May 1961 - Twins Review
THE STARTING LINEUP
As you can see, the only reason Billy Gardner still has a job is because of his defense. I do think Bertoia would be fine, but Gardner is clearly drinking buddies with somebody on that coaching staff. How else do you hold down a job with a .490 OPS? Fun fact - Gardner is one of the worst hitters in baseball, and he leads the team with five intentional walks. That's what you get for hitting in the #8 spot! Allison's been great so far, and Zoilo looks like he's going to be a fixture for a long time. I also really like what Lenny Green has been doing. He's 28, so it's not like he's a developing player, exactly, but he might be showing us what his prime looks like. I do wish Battey was hitting better, but he's rock-solid behind home, so it's hard to complain too much. A lights-out catcher on both sides of the ball is, after all, incredibly hard to come by. Jim Lemon is worrying me more by the day; as you can see, even Gardner is outhitting him average-wise. His best years may be behind him. Perhaps we can find a team that doesn't think so, and send him packing. After all, we have quite the potential left fielder down at Syracuse...more on that in a second. THE BENCH
The nature of the smaller pitching staff means that there are position players riding the pine who 1) aren't great and 2) don't see a ton of game action. Like Everette Joyner, who's only walked up to the plate seven times. If we were running more platoons, I'd be a more mindful of these kinds of guys who aren't making much of a contribution, but the fact of the matter is, there aren't any bench guys (or relievers, for that matter) who would be providing any more value than these guys. Franchi has done well since coming up. He's already played catcher, left field, center, and second base, and looked good everywhere. I'm excited about him. THE STARTING ROTATION
The 3.98 starters' ERA is fourth-worst in the American League despite 283 strikeouts from the staff as a whole (second-best.) Pascual is clearly the ace here, but a glossing over of these other statistics tells you that nobody else is really much of a standout. Like so many bands, the Twins have a frontman joined by four other people who may well be lost to time. Except I don't really believe Pascual's joined by a bunch of nobodies; Jim Kaat is going to be a solid pitcher as his arm matures, and I think Jack Kralick will be tough in his prime. THE BULLPEN
These numbers are just stupid. If Ray Moore doesn't get his nerve back now that he's been moved out of the high-leverage situations, he's just going to be granted an outright release. Stott is the only guy here who's shown any semblance of understanding how to pitch in a major-league baseball game. The pen's 6.93 ERA is far and away the worst number around. Looking down at all the 5.00+ Triple-A earned run averages, though, it's hard for me to have any confidence in bringing up somebody else. Strzyzewski should be coming up soon, but that's about it. Considering we have a pretty young starting staff that will be coming into their own, and an offense having an overall down year, our absolute clearest need as we build for the future is a bullpen that won't choke away every lead that we earn for ourselves. May 1961 - Farm Report STANDINGS
Our Appalachian League team, the Wytheville Twins, will begin play later this month. There aren't too many encouraging team performances thorughout the system, but things are looking okay down in Erie. The starting pitching has been fantastic, with youngsters Joe Kaiser, Donald Kuodis, and Norbert Lewandowski combining for a 19-4 record. TOP PROSPECTS
Obviously, Tony Oliva is the man to watch here. He's the 18th overall prospect in the bigs. This is his first season in professional ball, and he's absolutely crushing it so far. I'd wager that he's ready for the big leagues, but I'm not going to send him up until we can figure out a way to get something out of Jim Lemon. I'll lose a lot of leverage if I bench Lemon and he starts publicly demanding a trade. Jimmie Hall is looking excellent down in Single-A Erie. He was rated #99 on the top prospects list before the start of the season, and he's probably going to move up quickly. He's spent time at Double-A and Triple-A already. He could easily be a bench fixture for us next season. The Twins' system, it's worth noting, is rated 13th of out of 18, with one of our four top-100 prospects (Don Mincher) already in the major leagues. The Reds are in second place in the National League, and have the game's best system, with prospects like Pete Rose, Mel Stottlemyre, and Cesar Tovar. The game's top prospect is outfielder Rico Carty, in the Braves' system. Last edited by bpbrooksy; 04-29-2020 at 01:37 PM. |
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04-30-2020, 01:19 PM
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#18 | ||||
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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June 1st, 1961
On the off-day, we arranged for righty John Strzyzewski - that arm from Syracuse we've been talking about - to come and meet the team in Detroit. To make room for him, we've DFA'd Sonny Dixon, who's 36 and long since out of options. We hardly, knew ya, Sonny. ROSTER MOVE
The other 17 teams will get a crack at Dixon, but I'd be surprised to hear that he's been claimed. If he doesn't want to go to Syracuse, he's only owed $11k all this season, so releasing him wouldn't be the end of the world. Onward! This will be another shorter installment as we re-orient ourselves to the week-by-week schedule. We're picking it up on Friday, June 2nd, and will play four games with Detroit today, pausing once we're clear through Sunday again. June 2nd 1961 VSIt's our first trip to Tiger Stadium this year. Detroit is three games over the .500 mark, and only 2.5 back of the league-leading Yankees. Norm Cash is a tick or two back in home runs and RBI, but he's still leading the MLB with a stunning .385 batting average. We'll see if we can't hit him with his first slump of the year during this series. Quote:
Finally, we get an upset! Down 5-2 entering the ninth, the Twins scored three to steal a late one from Detroit. All three came on a dramatic home run off the bat of Bob Allison, with two outs. It's Allison's tenth homer of the year, and his most exciting one to date. This is Allison's third season in the league, and he's already gunning for his second All-Star appearance. Both Rocky Colavito (13) and Norm Cash (18) homered for Detroit. Their center fielder, Bill Bruton, went 4-for-5. Also going yard today was Killebrew, who's homered on consecutive days again. Johnnie Stott is 2/2 in saves. June 3rd, 1961 Quote:
No dice today against Alan Koch, who did just enough to get the win - five innings, and one run (a Bob Meisner homer.) Speaking of homers, Norm Cash went deep off Don Lee, for his 19th of the year. That pulls him back into a tie with Roger Maris for the league lead, though it's worth noting that neither is on pace any longer to break the record. Tomorrow we'll play two with the Tigers, before heading back to Yankee Stadium for another three games in the Bronx. June 4th, 1961 Quote:
With this loss, the Twins are the first to 30 defeats, and officially have the worst winning percentage in all of baseball. It's a darn shame that there's not a first-round amateur draft pick waiting for us at the end of all this. Bunning pitched a complete game and struck out nine Twins, while Pascual only made it through seven and had four walks to just three punchouts. Cash went deep for his 20th bomb of the year, and the only standout offensive performance for us was Earl Battey's 2-for-4 with an RBI. Quote:
Boy, oh, boy, Norm Cash likes it when we come to town. No homers today, but two more hits raised his average all the way to .396. Of course, no one has hit .400 since Ted Williams did it in 1941, and I don't think anyone's expecting Cash to push this pace for the rest of the summer. Still, it's been a thoroughly impressive showing through 50+ games. Allison, Frank Franchi, and Gardner had the only hits today; all singles. Meisner walked twice. Week in Review
POWER RANKINGS 1. Philadelphia Phillies (30-18) 2. Cincinnati Reds (29-20) 3. Cleveland Indians (29-23) 4. New York Yankees (31-22) 5. San Francisco Giants (28-20) ...16. Minnesota Twins (20-31) We have STILL managed to avoid bottoming out in the power rankings, thanks entirely to the Milwaukee Braves only winning two of their last ten, and the Los Angeles Angels finding themselves on a 7-game skid. On a 7-game roll, however, are the Phillies, who are back on top of the National League, a game and a half over Cincinnati. In our neck of the woods, it's still the Yankees and Orioles, who are tied for first. The Giants, at two games back, are the only other team in the NL conversation right now. Everyone else in that circuit is six games behind or more. But in the American League, the whole first division and then some is making a play, with the top six teams all over .500 and within four of the leader. I don't think anyone's predicting the 6th-place Kansas City Athletics to take the pennant, but still. |
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05-01-2020, 06:33 PM
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#19 | ||||||||
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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June 5th, 1961
VS This week, we get the Yankees, Orioles, and Red Sox. What a draw. The Yankees have the best run differential in the American League, at +52. The Twins? That's right, the worst, at -56. Quote:
We managed to come out on top in this tightly-contested opener. Up 3-0 through seven, we coughed up two in the eighth, but held the score there thanks to a combination relief performance from Stott and Moore. Zoilo had a big two-run double, and Allison went 2-for-3 with a walk and a run scored. So far in June, Jim Lemon is OPS'ing .404. What are we gonna do about this guy? After the game, Sonny Dixon (who had cleared waivers as we expected) was assigned to Triple-A Syracuse. Will he make an appearance in another major-league game? June 6th, 1961 Quote:
John Strzyzewski was handed the ball for his first big-league start today, and it didn't go great. To be fair, what can you expect out of a young guy who's never stepped onto a major-league mound, when the first thing he sees is 23,000 Yankee fans and Mantle, Maris, and Berra sitting in the middle of the lineup? (By the way, all of them homered.) The Yanks scored four off of young John in the first inning and didn't look back, although Strzyzewski made it through six. Whitey Ford was great today, striking out ten Twins. Allison's 11th homer was the only run batted in today. The Angels and Senators did a little roster-shuffling today, with 3B Eddie Yost heading to Washington and righty Tom Sturdivant going to L.A. Bob Skinner, the Pirates outfielder, is on a 20-game hitting streak. June 6th, 1961 Just one more trip to Yankee Stadium remains after this afternoon. Quote:
Can we play all our games at Yankee Stadium? We've certainly had more success here than anywhere else, with yesterday's loss the only such result since the season started. Up 2-0, then 4-2, we found ourselves surrendering two-run leads to the Yankees in both the fourth and the eighth innings. But when Lenny Green homered off Ryne Duren in the top of the ninth, the buck stopped there. Stott, who had come in to stop the bleeding in the eighth, tossed a clean ninth and lowered that ERA down to 1.35 in 20 innings even. Where do we find more guys like him? Jim Lemon had two doubles - the average creeps ever closer to .200 - and both Meisner and Killebrew had homers of their own. In Los Angeles, Bob Skinner's hitting streak ended. June 8th, 1961 VS We certainly played spoiler last series, as the Orioles wound up winning three in a row against the Angels (including a 7-0 shutout and 16-2 drubbing on the same day). Baltimore now holds a 1.5-game lead, and it's them who we'll face next. The Giants have won five in a row and have the National League lead again. Quote:
Fine pitching today from both Lee and Pappas, but the latter was just a little bit cleaner. The only batter he couldn't solve was Killebrew, who had two hits, including a sixth-inning homer that accounted for the team's only run today. Meanwhile, Gus Triandos knocked in all three for the O's. That's four in a row now for Baltimore. 2B Tony Taylor of Philadelphia made the news today, hitting safely in 20 games a day after Pirates outfielder Bob Skinner had his streak end. June 9th, 1961 Quote:
A big five-run sixth proved the difference on Friday evening in Baltimore. We were down 3-0 through five, and Billy Hoeft - making just his fifth appearance at a starter this year - was heading out for his sixth inning of work. It didn't go too well; Gardner tied the game with a 3-run homer, and Minnesota would get a pair off Steve Barber later in the inning. Gardner had four of the five RBI today for the Twins. Allison walked twice, and both Battey and Pascual had doubles. Tony Taylor's hit streak ended in L.A., where hit streaks evidently go to die. June 10th, 1961 Last game of the Baltimore set today - we have a doubleheader tomorrow in Boston to end the week (and then we play a wrap-around game with the Sox on Monday afternoon.) Then we head home. Quote:
All things considered, this was a pretty decent series, even if not all the breaks went our way. Harmon homered (14) in the fourth for our only run today. Dick Hall tied the game off Kralick in the fifth, and then it was zeroes through to the very end. Johnnie Stott had pitched the eighth and ninth, allowing just a hit and a walk. This young kid has shown a remarkable level of composure for a 22-year-old rookie. Nonetheless, Cookie had to turn to Ray Moore before long, and five pitches into his night, Moore served up a walk-off homer to Gus Triandos. June 11th, 1961 VSOur second trip to Fenway Park this year will see us close out the week with a Sunday doubleheader today, then finish the series (and the road trip) tomorrow at 1:05. While the Orioles and Yankees were playing us, the Sox won six in a row, and have tied New York for second place in the American League. They're just a game and a half out now. Notably, we're no longer in last place! The Senators have dropped five straight and the Angels have come off worse in six straight. That puts us in 8th place, 11.5 games back. The turnaround of the century. Quote:
What a game for the Twins! Most of these runs came late; Minnesota had a 6-1 lead in the ninth and then scored five more to really seal the deal. For the most part, this was Harmon's doing - he had a pair of two-run homers and now has 16 on the year. He also added a double and scored three times. Lenny Green had four hits and three runs, and even Jim Lemon was 2-for-4 with three knocked in. Kaat struck out just three, but only gave up four hits and a walk in a complete-game effort. Don Schwall struck out eight for Boston, but had to come out with a finger blister, and was let down by the pen. Quote:
What a day for the Twins offense. You're not gonna believe how this one went down. The Twins and Sox traded runs all afternoon. It was 2-0 Boston after four, whereupon Minnesota tied it with two in the fifth. The Red Sox got two back in the sixth, and Minnesota brought it within one after scoring in the seventh. Yes, that's a 4-3 game after the seventh inning. Down a run in the top of the ninth, here's what happened:
That's a 10-run top of the ninth inning, which is about as crooked a number as one could ask for. Boston made one heck of a break for it in the home ninth, scoring five of their own, but it still wasn't close. Every member of the starting lineup scored at least one run; Lenny Green entered as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning and scored twice. And despite giving up ten hits through eight, John Strzyzewski got his first major-league win, in a much better outing than his debut in New York. No doubt we took the wind out of Boston's sails today; they're alone in fourth now, and the Tigers, who have taken six straight and nine of ten, are alone in second - one game back of Baltimore, as Norm Cash and Jim Bunning will their way to wins. Week in Review
POWER RANKINGS 1. San Francisco Giants (35-20) 2. Detroit Tigers (36-26) 3. Baltimore Orioles (38-26) 4. Cincinnati Reds (34-23) 5. Cleveland Indians (33-27) ...11. Minnesota Twins (25-34) It was a relatively good week for us! We went 5-3 and worked our way out of dead last. The Giants have won nine straight and have a two-game lead in the National League. Detroit, as mentioned, is tearing it up and are nearly at the top of the AL, but Baltimore is still holding strong. They have the best bullpen in baseball, a strong defense, and good extra-base pop to make up for their league-worst .232 team batting average. |
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05-02-2020, 02:25 PM
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#20 | ||||||||
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 99
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June 12th, 1961
The new week begins with the conclusion of our series with the Boston Red Sox. Then, it's back home for the first time in weeks, where we have a three-game, midweek series against the Kansas City Athletics. Then, we're back on the road just like that, with four at Comiskey. We get our first day off of the month after that series, and then it's back to the Met for nine home games. What a grind this month is. Let's see if we can't keep the offense rolling and sweep the Red Sox. Quote:
What a series for this starting lineup. We haven't seen anything like that all year. In two days, the Twins offense scored 36 runs, and pulled off our first three-game sweep since April 27-29 in Los Angeles. That was the date of our last three-game winning streak, as well. It's been an inconsistent inaugural season. Today, we scored three in the third, a pair in the seventh, and five in the ninth, with a couple of one's elsewhere on the board. Zoilo hit his fifth homer of the year in the third inning, and Billy Consolo - getting the start at second and hitting second - knocked his first round-tripper of 1961. Killebrew was 3-for-6 with one knocked in. He's pretty much kicked it into gear, and the line on him reads .264/.365/.511. He's on pace for about a 4-win season, which was more or less last year's output. It's hard to believe that he's just 24, as the Killer already has 100 career home runs. Failed to mention that among the other elements of the rout yesterday. Congrats, Harm! Minnesota is 5-0 at Fenway on the year, with one more trip coming up in August. The sweep knocked the hot Sox back down into fifth place. June 13th, 1961 VSNext up, another series with the A's. Kansas City is a game ahead of us in the standings, at 26-32. After sitting around .500 for the first two months of the season, they've only won four of twelve so far in June. The pitching is fine, but they have no standout hitters to speak of other than Norm Seibern, who is the team's triple crown leader (.315, 11 HR, 44 RBI.) Quote:
A four-game winning streak - the longest of the year for the Twins! Don Lee pitched a great game, holding the A's to seven hits through 7.1 innings. Johnnie Stott and Wally Seward closed it out together. It was a slim, 2-1 lead in the home eighth, but that's when the offensive hose turned on again, and Minnesota brought forth a five-run inning. Frank Franchi knocked in three today, and Killebrew scored twice. June 14th, 1961 Quote:
Everyone was pretty comfortable handing the ball to Pascual today against this Kansas City lineup. "Little Potato" is on track to make his third straight All-Star Game appearance. He scattered six hits and struck out seven A's. Lenny Green was 4-for-5 with two doubles and three runs. Consolo started again and added another three hits - he's 8-for-15 this week with 7 RBI. Gardner's days numbered, mayhaps? C Smoky Burgess' hit streak ended at 21 games against Cincinnati. June 15th, 1961 Quote:
If you'll remember, our last meeting with the A's ended with a walk-off winner against Don Larsen. Apparently, that's the way this team likes to do it, as the Twins walked off Kansas City, with Larsen taking the loss again. Earl Battey's two-run homer was the big hit in a three-run first for Minnesota; the A's would be held scoreless until the sixth, then would tie the game in the seventh. It was Jim Lemon - who has been seeing some of his usual playing time handed off to Joseph Christian - who delivered the game-winning double in the bottom of the ninth. Stott pitched two shutout innings and grabbed the win. It's six in a row now for a team that looked pretty much lifeless just a week ago. The Twins are now in 7th place, and only five games under the .500 mark. Perhaps the first division isn't entirely out of reach. After the game, I had a message from Bill DeWitt over in Cincinnati. The Reds are trying to find a new home for outfielder Carlos Bernier (.276/.389/.310, 0 HR, 4 RBI, 92 wRC+, 0.2 WAR). They seem to think the 36-year-old -- who hasn't been in the majors since the early 50's -- commands a return including both Don Lee and prospect Jimmie Hall. What a laugher. June 16th, 1961 VSOne month later, we're back in good ol' Chicago, Illinois. The White Sox, who looked pretty exciting at the start of the season, are now barely ahead of us, eight games back of the Orioles for the American League lead. They're still getting strong performances out of guys like Jim Landis and Luis Aparicio, but they have six players on the Injured List, including Roy Sievers, Juan Pizarro, Billy Pierce, and Warren Hacker. Quote:
The streak ends as Stott lets us down for the first time. With a 3-3 tie in the eighth, young Johnnie gave up three runs on five hits, only managing to record one out. It was a jumbled-up day pitching-wise, as Kaat pulled a back muscle and left after three, which meant Wally Seward had to pick up most of the game today. After Stott departed, Stobbs only needed four pitches to finish the inning. Wish he could be like that more often. Lenny Green had three hits and Seward knocked in a run for himself. June 16th, 1961 Quote:
Close one today for the Twins, as the White Sox walk it off in the ninth. We had the lead for a good portion of the game, but kept letting Chicago back into it. Mincher and Battey each had run-scoring doubles, but it was Minnie Minoso's ninth-inning RBI single that would be all that mattered. Rookie hurler Lee Featherstone was great for Chicago today - 7 innings, 6 hits, 11 strikeouts...in his major-league debut. How about that! He had gone 10-0 with a 2.79 ERA down in Triple-A San Diego, with a 147 ERA+ and 3.0 WAR. Keep an eye out for this guy. The Cubs want words with us after the game. They think we might be interested in second sacker Jerry Kindall, a St. Paul native. They're not wrong; Kendall is interesting...26 years old, been in the league since '56 but still pretty green, and just looking for the right team to catch on with. The hang-up? They want Tony Oliva. Never happening. We'll see if they come back with a more reasonable offer. June 16th, 1961 Sunday double-header to close things out this weekend with the White Sox. Be nice to grab them both and not totally undo the work we put in at the beginning of this week. And it'd be great for morale heading into the off-day. Quote:
Not a great week for Stott, who gets another loss after coughing up two in the eighth. The Twins were down 4-3 in the eighth before pulling ahead by one with a three-run inning. Unfortunately, Chicago matched that tally, and came away with a 6-3 win. Versalles had an RBI triple, and Killebrew an RBI double, in that eighth. Jim Lemon went 3-for-4. Quote:
Strzyzewski started this one and held the Sox to jut one hit across six innings of work. On the flip side, he walked six batters and threw 105 pitches (only 62 of them for strikes) and was pulled relatively early. Thankfully, a trio of Moore, Jose Mejias, and Chuck Stobbs were able to keep a lid on it. Mejias has pitched less than two full innings since his promotion. No extra-base hits all day for the team, but all three runs scored with two outs on singles from Allison, Meisner, and Killebrew. Jim Lemon was the only Twin with two hits, and the team as a whole managed just five. Still, a win is a win! Week in Review
The Orioles have won six in a row and have a three-game lead over Detroit. In the other league, McCovey is helping his team stave off the Reds, who are neck-and-neck with San Francisco for first place. So far, it's been another solid season for McCovey, who's in his third trip around the summer schedule after winning Rookie of the Year in 1959 (he was Bob Allison's National League counterpart.) POWER RANKINGS 1. Baltimore Orioles 2. Detroit Tigers 3. Cincinnati Reds 4. San Francisco Giants 5. New York Yankees ...11. Minnesota Twins (30-37) It was a fun week in Minnesota, as the six-game winning streak gave us something to get ourselves excited about beyond individual performances. This team still has a ways to go, in both the season alone and in its own realization as a contending team. Other than that, it's the usual suspects, with the top three teams in the AL and the top two in the NL filling up this week's Power Rankings. Detroit and New York have a little bit of catching up to do, and beyond the Giants and Reds, only the Phillies are really close at five games back. |
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