1988 MINNESOTA TWINS MINI BASEBALL BAT SERIES

They chipped away at the divisional deficit and were within six games when they visited Oakland for a four-game set in late June. Minnesota continued to play well through the early summer months. But the A’s had a comfortable nine-game cushion. The Twins’ record at the holiday was 24-22 and they were up to second place. By the end of the month, they were starting to roll, with an eight-game winning streak leading into Memorial Day. It was early May that Minnesota began to play better baseball. So when we say Minnesota was staring at a 10-game deficit in the AL West, that was even more alarming than it would be today. Only the first-place team could advance to the postseason. The alignment of major league baseball prior to 1994 had each league split into just two divisions, an East and a West. But the Twins were still 9-16 in late April and ten games back of the sizzling Oakland A’s. A sweep of Baltimore, who was off to a historically bad start provided a brief respite. Skeptics of the Twins’ 1987 performance got early ammunition when they lost 11 of their first 16 games. Jeff Reardon was one of baseball’s best closers and in 1988 he saved 42 games with a 2.47 ERA. Because if they could just get to the end of games, Minnesota was in good hands. They weren’t bad, but given the rotation depth issues, the Twins could have used a couple more arms in these roles. The middle and setup relief crew relied on Juan Berenguer, who finished with a 3.96 ERA and Keith Atherton, whose ERA clocked in at 3.41. The back end of the rotation remained problematic and Kelly did his best to work with Charlie Lea, Freddie Tolliver and Les Straker, who were all varying degrees of mediocre. Fortunately for the Twins, 24-year-old Allan Anderson picked up the slack, making 30 starts, getting 16 victories and posting a 2.45 ERA. The final numbers were ugly: 10-17 and a 5.43 ERA. Viola won 24 games, finished with a 2.64 ERA and won the Cy Young Award.īut Viola’s running mate, future Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven, was now 37-years-old and Blyleven struggled in 1988. And staff ace Frank Viola got even better in 1988. The top of the rotation had driven the previous October’s postseason success. The pitching staff wasn’t far behind, coming in sixth in staff ERA. Minnesota ended up fifth in the American League for runs scored. 366 OBP in just over 200 plate appearances. Manager Tom Kelly always got the most out of his bench, and the best example this year was outfielder John Moses, who posted a.

Gene Larkin handled DH duties and while he didn’t have much power, the. Randy Bush was in rightfield and provided a respectable stat line of. 353/.551 and he homered 28 times.ĭan Gladden played left field and his 28 stolen bases helped spark the lineup, even if his overall production levels were mediocre. 387 on-base percentage/.520 slugging percentage. Kent Hrbek hit 25 home runs and posted a stat line of. More power came from the corner spots of the infield. With 24 home runs and 121 RBIs, Puckett finished third in the American League MVP voting. Kirby Puckett was the star and the centerfielder had his best season to date in 1988. But they were actually better than they’d been a year earlier, and in a roundabout way, validated their title run of the previous October. That kept the Twins out of the postseason. Was ’87 just a strange year where they benefitted from a soft division and a hot streak at the right time? In 1988, the landscape of the American League changed and the AL West that Minnesota occupied prior to 1994 became a lot tougher. Louis to win it all.īut how good were these Twins? This was still a franchise that hadn’t won 90 games since 1970. And from there, they took off, upsetting more credentialed opponents from Detroit and St. It wasn’t the most impressive of division crowns, with 85 wins, but it got Minnesota onto the October stage. 500 since 1979, jumped up and won a division title. It’s even less frequent that this team could finish a distant second place and still manage to prove that intangible “something.” But that’s exactly how the 1988 Minnesota Twins can be described.

1988 MINNESOTA TWINS MINI BASEBALL BAT SERIES

It isn’t often that a team coming off the first World Series title in franchise history has something to prove.

1988 minnesota twins mini baseball bat