Category: Lewis Thorpe

March 21, 2022

A look at 2 standout games from Hall of Famer Jim Kaat

Class of 2022 Hall of Fame inductee pitcher Jim Kaat, who spent 15 of his 25 seasons in baseball with the Twins, produced two standout games (among many, I’m sure) early in his career and at the beginning of a new decade. On both occasions he was part of shutout wins and homered to support... Continue Reading »

May 23, 2021

The bad luck continues: Twins now 0-8 in extra innings

I was all prepared to write that the Twins are starting to turn things around, and then they went and lost in extra innings again to the Cleveland Indians on Saturday. The Tribe gave Shane Bieber a 3-0 lead, but the Twins came back against one of baseball’s best pitchers to tie the game. But... Continue Reading »

April 17, 2021

Twins lose again after snapping 5-game losing streak

During the 2020 season, the Twins, like every team in the majors, played most of their games against divisional rivals. The club was good enough to win a second straight AL Central title, but there was some scuttlebutt: Would the Twins have won the central if they had played outside the division last season? That... Continue Reading »

March 28, 2021

What do you think of J.A. Happ now, Twins fans?

Free agent pitcher and ex-Yankee, J.A. Happ, saw more spring training action on Friday, but perhaps he wishes he hadn’t after he was roughed up in a 7-6 loss to the Atlanta Braves. The Twins are 1-6 in exhibition play against the Braves. Happ followed Kenta Maeda, who was his usual sterling self. Maeda scattered... Continue Reading »

March 17, 2021

There it is: Jose Berrios and the first pitching dud of spring training

Twins starting pitchers Jose Berrios, Kenta Maeda, Matt Shoemaker, J.A. Happ and maybe Randy Dobnak or Lewis Thorpe, have pitched extremely well this spring. So well, in fact, that their collective performance has stood in sharp contrast to that produced by the relief corps. (My apologies to Mr. Michael Pineda who is very much a... Continue Reading »

March 15, 2021

The real-deal Twins looked good on Sunday. However, about the bullpen…

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli unveiled the real deal on Sunday, using a lineup that we can probably expect to see a lot during the regular season. All the familiar names were there: Max Kepler, Josh Donaldson, Nelson Cruz, Mitch Garver, Jorge Polanco, Miguel Sano, Byron Buxton, Andrelton Simmons and Brent Rooker, who played in left... Continue Reading »

March 8, 2021

Twins starting pitching has been sensational. The bullpen? Now that’s a different story

In games that Twins pitchers Jose Berrios, Kenta Maeda, Michael Pineda, Matt Shoemaker, Devin Smeltzer and Lewis Thorpe have started so far this spring — and this is likely to be the starting rotation, give or take Smeltzer, for the regular season — they have allowed a grand total of one earned run. That came... Continue Reading »

March 3, 2021

Braves blank Twins, Thorpe looks sharp in debut

The Twins fell to 2-1 on the young start to exhibition play after the Atlanta Braves shut out the club 6-0 on Tuesday. It appears that Twins manager, Rocco Baldelli, went with youth on the mound and they didn’t fare so well, allowing 11 hits, including four extra-base hits, over seven innings. Braves pitching, meanwhile,... Continue Reading »

August 30, 2020

Oh, boy: Twins lose twice to Tigers

The not-so-terrible Tigers on Saturday swept a doubleheader from the Twins, a situation that now has the team from Minnesota looking up in the AL Central at new league leaders. The Tribe is in first, the White Sox are in second and the Twins are now in third place, 1.5 games out of the top... Continue Reading »

Hi, I’m Rolf Boone, Twins fan.

I became a fan of the Minnesota Twins after a friendly wager in the early 1980s. I survived Ron Davis, the meltdown in Cleveland, Phil Bradley at the Kingdome and then marveled at a rising generation of stars and two World Series wins in 1987 and 1991. Brad Radke made the 1990s bearable, while Kirby Puckett’s eye injury, exit from the game and eventual death made it almost too much to bear. The new century ushered in more talent — Joe Mauer, Johan Santana, Joe Nathan, Torii Hunter, Justin Morneau — and consecutive seasons of playoff baseball, followed by consecutive seasons of losing baseball. A winning season returned in 2015. So here we are. Go Twins.