Benj Sampson

[William Malone]

Benjamin Damon Sampson was born on April 27, 1975 in Des Moines, Iowa.

The Minnesota Twins selected him in round six of the 1993 MLB Draft. He reached the Majors during the September roster expansion in 1998.

Sampson began his big league career with a 1-2-3 inning out of the Twins bullpen on September 9th against the Anaheim Angels. He followed that up with a scoreless inning against the Oakland Athletics on September 13th. His scoreless streak continued into outing number three, when Sampson allowed two hits and no runs over 2.1 relief innings on September 15th against the Seattle Mariners.

Twins manager Tom Kelly trusted Sampson with a start against the Detroit Tigers on September 20th. He tossed six scoreless innings, allowing just three hits and striking out nine. This performance helped Sampson earn his first career win. The scoreless inning streak finally came to an end in the fourth inning of his next start, surrendering a sacrifice fly against Manny Ramirez of the Cleveland Indians. He finished that game with three runs allowed over seven innings, striking out four. It was his final outing of the season.

Sampson opened 1999 in the Twins rotation, but was quickly demoted to relief work after posting a 16.88 ERA through three starts. He started to pitch a little better, recording a 3.75 ERA over his next ten outings. Due to his role as a long reliever, these ten appearances covered 24.0 innings. Sampson began to struggle again in the middle and later portions of the season, finishing the year with an 8.11 ERA over 71.0 innings.

He stayed in the Twins minor league system through the end of 2002, but never got back to the Majors again after 1999. Sampson spent 2003 in the Colorado Rockies minor league system, and pitched for a team in China during the 2004 campaign.

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