Twins Almanac: Paul Molitor's Sixth-Straight Multi-Hit Game

[Matt Johnson]

On this date in Minnesota baseball history:

• Happy 67th birthday to Tim Laudner 
• 1987: Edina East graduate pitches two-hit shutout
• 1996: 39-year-old DH has sixth-straight multi-hit game
• 2011 & '18: Chaska and Totino-Grace graduates make MLB debuts
• 2013: Eden Prairie graduate earns first MLB win

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Happy Birthday, Tim Laudner
Happy 67th birthday to 1976 Park Center graduate Tim Laudner, born in Mason City, Iowa, in 1958. His family moved to Brooklyn Center when Tim was seven.

Laudner led all of professional baseball with 44 home runs in 1981, including a Southern League record 42 at Double-A Orlando, and one in each of his first two career major league games. He was just the seventh player since at least 1908 to homer in his first two career games. He was one of three Twins to homer in their major league debut in less than a month. Four days before Laudner’s debut, 1978 Bloomington Kennedy graduate Kent Hrbek hit a 12th-inning game-winning home run off future teammate George Frazier at Yankee Stadium. Gary Gaetti homered in his first major league at-bat on September 20.

Twins fans' most enduring memories of Laudner will likely be of the 1987 World Series. After hitting just .191 (with 16 home runs) during the regular season, he was clutch in the World Series, going 7-for-22 (.318) with five walks, a double, home run (Game 2), four RBI, and four runs scored. 

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Molitor Has Sixth-Straight Multi-Hit Game
39-year-old Twins DH Paul Molitor went 4-for-5 on this date in 1996, giving him six-straight multi-hit games. Over that six-game streak, he went 15-for-28 (.536) with three home runs and 12 RBI, raising his season average to .350. Then he pretty much kept up that pace, finishing the season batting .341 and leading the league with 225 hits. He had 22 games that season with three or more hits.

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Drees Pitches Two-Hit Shutout
Edina East graduate Tom Drees pitched a two-hit shutout for single-A Daytona Beach versus West Palm Beach on this date in 1987. Believe it or not, he also pitched THREE no-hitters at triple-A Vancouver in 1989!

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Hand Makes MLB Debut
21-year-old Chaska graduate Brad Hand made his major league debut with the Marlins on this date in 2011, making the start at home versus Atlanta. Hand was solid, holding Atlanta to just one hit and a walk (the first batter he faced) over six innings. Unfortunately, that one hit was an Álex González homer leading off the fourth, which held up for a 1-0 Atlanta win. Talk about a tough-luck loss in your MLB debut!

Atlanta swept the three-game series by scores of 1-0, 3-2, and 3-2.

Hand went on to make three All-Star teams over his 13-year major league career. His 579 appearances are third-most among players born in Minnesota, behind Tom Burgmeier and Jerry Koosman, and ahead of Jack Morris.  

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Wagner Earns First MLB Win
The Blue Jays brought in Eden Prairie graduate Neil Wagner to face Adrian Beltré on this date in 2013. He struck him out, leading to Wagner's first MLB win.

 

In an amusing coincidence, two days later they brought Wagner in to face Beltré again, but this time he hit a home run, leading to Wagner's first MLB loss. (He did strike out the next batter, Nelson Cruz.)  

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Meyer Makes MLB Debut
2011 Totino Grace graduate and four-year Golden Gopher Ben Meyer made his major league debut with the Marlins in St. Louis on this date in 2018, entering down 4-1 in the seventh with a runner on and nobody out. Folks, he retired all three batters he faced. Hell yeah!

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Fun Fact
Luis Arráez was batting .401 heading into play on this date in 2023. (He raised it to .403 that night, but they didn't make a cool graphic for that.)

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[Doctor Wu]

Another fun look at Twins history. Thank you!

Laudner led all of professional baseball with 44 home runs in 1981, including a Southern League record 42 at Double-A Orlando.

I was living in Orlando and going to some of those AA Twins games when Laudner was launching all those homers. Fun times! Sadly, he never replicated those power numbers in the majors, but he still had a pretty good career.