In today's game against the Tigers (who are on a pace to lose about 115 games this season), the Twins hit six home runs, numbers 263 through 268 for the year, and broke the major league record for homers by a team in a single season—the Yankees hit 267 last year.
Oh, and the Twins lost the game, 10-7. All their runs scored on the homers, five of which came with no one on base. The Twins have been playing baseball in Minnesota since 1961 and today was the first time they'd ever lost a game in which they homered six times. One of today's homers was clubbed by Polanco, his twentieth of the season. The Twins can now hand the umpire a lineup card in which every slot in the batting order is filled by someone with at least twenty homers: Cruz the designated batter (34), Garver catching (26), Cron at first (24), Schoop at second (21), the aforementioned Polanco at shortstop (20), Sano at third (26), Rosario in left (27), Kepler in center (36), and . . . I lied, Marwin Gonzalez has only 15. But I believe no team has ever had eight different players with at least 20 homers in one season.
Here is a bit of home run trivia: in 1965, when the Twins won 102 games and played in their first World Series, they were—notwithstanding Killebrew and Allison and Oliva and Jimmie Hall and 19 round trippers from their shortstop, Zoilo Versalles—out-homered by their opponents, 150-166. You have to pitch it and catch it, too. Maybe I'm just a little sour from today's game, but I'm not necessarily a fan of all the home runs. So many are hit partly because no one ever bunts (despite the ridiculous shifts), the hit-and-run is practically extinct, and no one changes their approach when behind in the count. I was watching a game in the recently completed series in Chicago against the Sox, and there was an inning in which our pitcher—it was Pineda—faced four batters, striking out the side while walking one. The Twins then came to bat and sent five guys to the plate. Two homered. The other three struck out. Nine batters, six outs, two runs scored, no base running, no fielding, not a single ball in play. Could have just had the pitcher and catcher out there. Seems the whole game is just to see if the batter can hit it over the fence before strike three. Insert a second baseman after the walk to prevent the steal. Not that it'd matter. Who cares what base someone's standing on if the batter hits a home run (or strikes out)?
Anyway, the Twins went 17-11 in August and finished up the month in first place, 4.5 games ahead of the Indians. Their overall record is 83-52, so if they could win 17 of their last 27 games they would
- almost certainly win their division; and
- finish the regular season with 100 wins.
They'll probably have to hit another 40 homers to do that. It was Perez who got knocked around today by the heavy-hitting Tigers, but is there anything more agonizing than watching Kyle Gibson pitch? I think color commentator Roy Smalley said it best a week or so ago: your stuff doesn't get better when the count is 2-0, so why not throw it over the plate and see if the guy can hit it right away? Our fielding is loose, too. Why would a baserunner ever try to steal a base when he can just wait for our catcher to stab ineffectually at a near strike? Polanco throws like my daughter, who's 11. Sometimes the ball finds its way to Cron's glove, for the same reason I sometimes did well on true-false tests. Watching Eddie Rosario play left field, you have to wonder whether Spanish has a phrase for "throw to the right base, dammit." Today, Ehire Adrianza played right field—at least, he did until the ball was hit that way. 83-52! Apparently you can cover a multitude of sins by hitting it over the fence a lot.
Two day games coming up in Detroit. The Twins then have 12 games in 13 days against good teams fighting to make the playoffs: the Red Sox, the Indians, the Nationals, the Indians again. Beat the Tigers tomorrow.
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