What’s the worst losing streak in major league baseball history? A chilling, headache-inducing 23-game nightmare that befell the poor Philadelphia Phillies in 1961.
The 2024 Chicago White Sox aren’t there just yet, but they are one game closer after the Twins cast aside the South Siders like yesterday’s news in a 10-2 defeat at Target Field. The Pale Hose have now lost 18 straight games.
No surprise: It was never really close. The Twins scored two runs in the opening frame, tacked on two more in the third and six runs late to run away from the South Siders.
Royce Lewis doubled and homered and drove in four runs. The team also got long distance communiques from Byron Buxton and Willi Castro, and although Trevor Larnach had only one hit, he scored three runs because he walked twice.
On the mound, Grateful Dead fan Joe Ryan made a quality start and reliever Trevor Richards, who came over from the Toronto Blue Jays prior to the trade deadline, closed out the ninth on nine pitches, seven of them landing for strikes.
Bailey Ober gets the ball Saturday.
Extra innings…
-The Twins are 10-1 against the White Sox this season with two games left in their head-to-head series.
-August is here which means it’s time to buckle down and get serious in the American League Central. The Twins are 60-48, which is a half-game behind the Royals and 6.5 games back of the Cleveland Guardians, who continue to find ways to win, despite not having enough starting pitching. The Twins and Royals are 6-4 in their last 10, but the Guards are 8-2.
-A little history: On Aug. 3, 1948, Satchel Paige made his first major league start for the Cleveland Indians against the Washington Senators/Nationals.
Paige allowed three runs over seven innings with four walks and six strikeouts in the 5-3 Tribe win. Looking at those numbers, some might say, “What’s the big deal? That’s not so impressive.”
Here’s why you’re wrong: Paige was 42. He also had one hit in three at bats and picked off a runner at first base.
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer on the game:
“The largest night crowd in Cleveland history, a massive throng of 72,434 fans who jammed the stadium to capacity last night, saw Satchel Paige and Ed Klieman pitch the Indians back into first plaice in the turbulent race for the American League pennant.
“Paige hurled seven innings in his first major league starting assignment and Klieman finished a job well-done as the Indians defeated the Washington Nationals 5 to 3 before an amazing turnout that surpassed the former Cleveland record by nearly 7,000 and fell only 2,313 short of baseball’s greatest after-dark gathering.”
The (Washington, D.C.) Evening Star
“If the Cleveland Indians capture the American League pennant it will be over the strenuously struggling, protesting bodies of the Nats. Cleveland brings the Nats’ normally calm corpuscles to a boil, with the result that Washington has played inspired baseball, mostly in a losing cause, against the Indians.”
So were there any future Twins in the Nats lineup that night? Sherry Robertson, who would go on to become a Twins farm director, made a pinch hit appearance in the game.
Sources: MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com