A History of Non-Pitchers Pitching for the Twins

9/10/1961: Julio Becquer came into the game in the bottom of the 7th inning with the Twins trailing 8-1 at the Kansas City Athletics. He promptly allowed four consecutive two-out hits, two singles and two doubles. By the time Becquer recorded the third out, the Twins trailed 13-1. Becquer came back out for the 8th inning and had some more success, with only a two-out walk between him and a 1-2-3 inning. It was Becquer’s second career pitching appearance. The firstbaseman had pitched an inning the previous year as part of the Washington Senators.

9/22/1968: Cesar Tovar starts and pitches one inning in a game in which the utility man played exactly one inning at each of the nine positions on the field as part of a promotion dreamed up by Calvin Griffith. Tovar did not allow a hit, but walked one batter and was called for a balk. The game drew just north of 11,000 fans, which was below average for a Sunday game. The Twins won the game 2-1.

6/27/1988 & 5/7/1989: Dan Gladden made a total of two appearances as a pitcher. His career line: 2.0 innigs pitched, 1 walk, 0 strikeouts, 4.50 ERA.

6/24/1989, 5/19/1990, & 7/3/1990: John Moses took over for Gladden as the mop-up position player/pitcher and made three appearances. Two of them came at Fenway Park.

7/25/2011: Michael Cuddyer allowed two hits but no runs in a 20-6 loss to the Texas Rangers.

5/20/2012: Drew Butera reached 94 mph on the radar gun and struck out former Twin Carlos Gomez in a scoreless inning pitched against the Milwaukee Brewers.

 

1944: Elmer Gedeon

Because it is Memorial Day, I am reposting this blurb on Elmer Gedeon that I originally published in April 2008.

April 20, 1944

Elmer Gedeon was part of an athletic family from the beginning. His uncle Joe was a major league ballplayer who made a little history of his own by being the only player banned as a result of the Black Sox scandal that wasn’t actually a member of the team that threw the games.

Elmer followed in his uncle’s athletic footsteps, however, and became a multi-sport athlete at the University of Michigan. He lettered in three different sports, but his best was probably track and field, in which he was a two-time Big Ten Champion, helping his team to earn multiple National Championships. Elmer also played football and baseball in college.

Upon graduation in 1939, Gedeon signed with the Washington Nationals. After spending the first part of that season in the minors, he was called up in mid-September and appeared in five games for Washington. He spent the 1940 season playing in Charlotte, and though he received another September call to Washington he did not appear in any games. Gedeon was set to return to spring training in 1941, but was drafted to the military in January of that year instead.

Gedeon joined the Air Force and ended up flying missions as a captain in France. Gary Bedingfield chronicled the events of April 20 at Baseballlibrary.com:

On April 20, Gedeon piloted one of 30 B-26 Marauders that left Boreham to attack construction works at Bois de Esquerdes. It was the group’s thirteenth mission. Gedeon’s bomber was severely hit by flak over France, and co-pilot Lieutenant James Taaffe, who had been sitting alongside Gedeon when the airplane was hit, was the only crew member able to escape as the bomber plunged to the earth, carrying Gedeon and five others. He is buried at St Pol, France.

Gedeon was listed as MIA for more than a year. Finally, in May of 1945, his father received confirmation of Elmer’s death from a commanding officer who explained that his burial site had been located.

Gedeon was one of two major league players who were killed in action during World War II. The other was Harry O’Neill of the Philadelphia Athletics, who was killed at Iwo Jima in March 1945.

Baseball Reference page

Another Bio

2005: 74 Pitches

May 20, 2005

In December 2003 the Twins sent Eric Milton to the Phillies in exchange for Nick Punto, Carlos Silva, and the famous player-to-be-named-later. To that point in his career, Silva had been used only out of the bullpen. The Twins thought he had the stuff to be a starter, and immediately plugged the Venezuelan into the starting rotation. Silva responded with a solid 2004 season in which he won 14 games and allowed only 35 walks in 203 innings pitched.

2005 started out even better for the 26-year-old Silva. In his first six starts he had a 3.77 ERA and had allowed, incredibly, only two walks in 43 innings pitched. Silva was scheduled to go against the Brewers in a Friday night game at the Metrodome on May 20, 2005; but Silva’s pitching performance could have just as likely have happened 100 years earlier.

The game was a perfect combination of a sinking sinker and an opponent that was more than happy to swing at it. Silva allowed just one run and five hits in a complete game victory. The complete game was rare enough, particularly in the Ron Gardenhire era, but that is not what made this effort by Silva special.

At the end of the night, Silva completed the 7-1 Twins’ victory by throwing just 74 pitches, 50 for strikes. It was, and is, the lowest pitch count in a complete game since 2000, when Elias started keeping track of low pitch counts in complete games.

LaVelle E. Neal offered some perspective in his game story in the Star Tribune (5/21/05):

Chew on this for a minute. A pitcher throws eight warmup tosses before each inning. That means Silva entered the ninth inning with 64 warmup throws and 64 actual pitches. And that means he threw more warmup pitches than actual pitches in the first, second, sixth and seventh innings.

Silva finished the 2005 season leading the league with an incredible 0.4 walks per nine inning rate and 7.89 strikeout to walk ratio. His numbers weren’t great in 2006 or 2007, but he managed to get a big contract with Seattle, where he has struggled for the past season and a half.

1988: Brunansky for Herr

Originally posted at Tony, the Killer, and Carew on 4/26/2007. For more on the trade, here is the report from my Hot Stove 1988 series a few years back.

April 22, 1988

Fresh off of the club’s first ever World Championship, the Twins’ front office was looking for another. Impatient with the team’s 4-10 start, it seemed inevitable that a shakeup was going to occur. That shakeup was announced shortly after an 11-6 home loss to lowly Cleveland.

The Twins announced that they were trading 27-year old Tom Brunansky, a six-year regular in right field for the Twins, to the Cardinals for 32-year old second baseman Tom Herr.

Brunansky originally came to the Twins from the California Angels in a 1982 trade that sent Doug Corbett and Rob Wilfong to the Angels. Brunansky immediately became the team’s starting right fielder, and didn’t relinquish that spot until he was traded to the Cardinals. The Twins had come to expect pretty consistent numbers from Bruno, who quickly became a fan favorite in Minnesota. He generally only hit in the .240-.250 range, but was a patient hitter and had some power. He started slowly in 1988, batting only .184/.286/.265 with one home run; a line that likely made him expendable in the eyes of GM Andy MacPhail.

The previous fall, Tom Herr had competed against the Twins in the World Series. He batted .250/.300/.357 in seven games against his future team in a losing effort in the series. From the time he had signed as an amateur free-agent as an 19-year-old in 1974, Herr had been a part of the Cardinals’ organization. He had some good offensive seasons, most notably in 1985 when he hit .302/.379/.416 for an NL Championship team; but Herr was mostly known for his glove, although today’s defensive metrics indicate that he was a touch overrated in that department.

Andy MacPhail, quoted by Mark Vancil in the Star Tribune (4/23/88), explained his reasoning.

“It’s tough to do when a guy has done so much for the club for several years,” said MacPhail. “We just felt we needed to improve our balance, and I think Tommy Herr is one of the four or five best second basemen in all of baseball. He gives us a lefthanded bat at the front of the order and he can steal a base.”

It was speculated that this move would be followed by a move sending Steve Lombardozzi away in exchange for a starting pitcher, but that move never came to fruition. Lombo was never a big hitter, and, like most Twins, had a poor start in 1988 (.094/.194/.188 at the time of the trade).

To replace Brunansky in right, the Twins looked to 29-year-old Randy Bush. Bush made his reputation as a versatile back up and a good left-handed pinch hitter, but had few chances to play a regular position with the Twins. Bush figured to give the Twins a similar hitting line as Brunansky, with a lower slugging percentage and fewer home runs.

The 1988 numbers tell part of the story of this trade:

Tom Brunansky STL 143 G .245/.345/.428 22 HR 79 RBI 121 OPS+ 7.6 WARP3
Tom Herr MIN 86 G .263/.349/.326 1 HR 21 RBI 89 OPS+ 2.9 WARP3

The story the numbers don’t tell is that Tom Herr did not want to play for the Twins. The first wind of it showed up in the papers three weeks after the trade, when Herr was quoted saying that he felt like an “intruder” in Minnesota. By the end of May, Herr had already announced that he would not return to the team in 1989. He took a trip on the DL in the middle of the season, though many on the team and in the media privately believed that the injury may have been in Herr’s head.

The Twin Cities media had passed judgment on Herr, and the writing was on the wall. Herr was eventually traded to Philadelphia as part of the deal that brought Shane Rawley to the Twins. The Twins had some trouble filling the second base position for several years, and didn’t really settle on a regular until Chuck Knoblauch’s rookie season in 1991.

The immediate impact of the trade looked horrible for the Twins, but as the years passed history was a little more kind to MacPhail. Brunansky lasted in the majors until 1994. Aside from a mini-resurgence with the Red Sox in 1992, he never really returned the the form that had made him a favorite in Minnesota. The Twins ultimately got one poor season from Tom Herr and one poor season from Shane Rawley in exchange for Bruno. While it wasn’t as bad as it initially looked, it is not one of the proudest trades in Twins’ history.

1988: “Bean Ball” Blyleven

Friday April 22, 1988

In a losing effort against the Cleveland Indians at the Metrodome, Bert Blyleven tied a league record by beaning four Cleveland batters. Blyleven also hit the final batter he faced on the day.

He started on his record pace quickly, hitting Julio Franco on the second pitch of the game. He also hit Ron Kittle in the first inning. Both Franco and Kittle came around to score in the inning (along with just about every other member of the Cleveland lineup).

In all, it was a forgettable day for Bert Blyleven.

Bert made another run at history when he hit three Oakland A’s in the same inning on September 28 of the same year.

The Franchise 1993 (Part 2)

Roster/Stats (Pitchers)
Bold = Player new to Minnesota in 1993

SP Kevin Tapani 12-15 4.43 ERA 98 ERA+ 1.32 WHIP 3.71 FIP 2.8 WAR
Kevin Tapani in 1993 looked very similar to Kevin Tapani in 1992, the main difference that he essentially flipped his won/loss record. Accordingly, everybody wondered what had happened to Tapani.

SP Scott Erickson 8-19 5.19 ERA 84 ERA+ 1.50 WHIP 4.05 FIP 1.0 WAR
Erickson came into his final two starts of the 1993 season with the chance to join Pedro Ramos (1961) in the Twins’ 20-loss club. He earned a no-decision in both, including a 6 1/3 inning effort at Fenway Park in a Twins’ loss. He still ended the season with a league-worst 19 losses, but gained some credit from Tom Kelly for “being competitive enough to stare down 20 losses.”

SP Willie Banks 11-12 4.04 ERA 107 ERA+ 1.54 WHIP 4.09 FIP 2.4 WAR
Banks had some success in his first full season in the majors, and may have been the best of the Twins rotation in 1993. Still, the former first round pick was not developing as quickly as the Twins would have liked, so his success meant that his trade value peaked. The Twins sent him to Chicago in exchange for Matt Walbeck and Dave Stevens. As it turned out, 1993 was Banks’ best career season. He bounced around the league playing for six different teams. Banks became a somewhat effective bullpen arm, but never reached the promise that he seemed to have as a first round pick.

SP Jim Deshaies 11-13 4.41 ERA 99 ERA+ 1.25 WHIP 4.92 FIP 2.6 WAR
Jim Deshaies had been a very effective starter for the Houston Astros in the latter part of the 1980′s, but was considered a reclamation project when the Twins signed him as a free agent after the 1992 season. By mid-season, Deshaies was considered the most reliable starter in the rotation. Deshaies’ success led to a late August trade with the contending San Francisco Giants in which the Twins picked up three players, to most recognizable of which was reliever Aaron Fultz who, at the time, was still seven years away from his major league debut. Immediately after the season ended, Deshaies became a free agent and ultimately signed to return to Minnesota for the 1994 season.

SP Eddie Guardado 3-8 6.18 ERA 70 ERA+ 1.68 WHIP 4.97 FIP -0.6 WAR
When Pat Mahomes started the season 0-5 with an 11.29 ERA, the Twins looked to 22-year old Eddie Guardado to fill in the final spot in the rotation. Guardado was drafted by the Twins in the 21st round of the 1990 draft. His 16 starts in 1993 would represent over half of his career starts when his career ended 17 years later.

CL Rick Aguilera 4-3 3.11 ERA 140 ERA+ 1.02 WHIP 3.60 FIP 2.3 WAR
While the rest of the team struggled, the one area in which the Twins were set was at the closer position. There were plenty of rumors at the end of the season – the Atlanta Braves were the most often mentioned team, but Aguilera would return to the Twins for 1994.

RP Mike Trombley 6-6 4.88 ERA 89 ERA+ 1.50 WHIP 4.36 FIP 0.1 WAR
RP Mike Hartley 1-2 4.00 ERA 109 ERA+ 1.50 WHIP 3.82 FIP 0.8 WAR
RP Carl Willis 3-0 3.10 ERA 141 ERA+ 1.25 WHIP 2.80 FIP 1.3 WAR
RP Larry Casian 5-3 3.02 ERA 145 ERA+ 1.28 WHIP 2.92 FIP 1.1 WAR
The bullpen was stretched by a starting staff that pitched just five complete games all season, but ended up being a relative strength for a fairly bad team.

1983: Deflated

April 14, 1983

For the third time in its brief history, the Metrodome deflated.

The first time it happened was in November of 1981, just weeks after the dome was inflated for the first time. The cause was a 10-inch snowfall.

A little more than a year later, in December of 1982, the roof collapsed again, this time as a result of melting snow.

An April snowfall in 1983 didn’t figure to cause too many problems for the roof. Snow removal at the time was handled by people on the roof with shovels. One of the shovelers ran into a chunk of ice which tore a hole in the roof as the crew attempted to move it. The roof deflated on the evening of April 14. Though there was a game scheduled that night, it had been already been canceled due to the fact that the California Angels weren’t able to fly in due to the winter storm.

Though it was the last time that the roof collapsed, the issue was not dead. Seven years later, the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission was awarded $3.6 million in damages from the Dome’s builders.

The roof, of course, collapsed one more time in December of 2010. By that time the Twins had already played a season in their new home, and didn’t have to worry about the dome anymore.