The Twins Almanac: An 81-Pitch Gem, A Rule 5 Catcher and a 42-Year-Old Pitcher

2 hours ago, Mortimerkenny21 said:

Dang I was going to say Luis Arreaz, but realized he won batting titles for an AL team..us the good guys, and then two NL teams.

That is pretty crazy that he won three-straight batting titles with three different teams. Hard to imagine that happening in the '80s.

5 hours ago, stringer bell said:

Terry Mulholland is an Immaculate Grid favorite of mine (I always try to populate all the entries with current or ex-Twins). Mulholland played for eleven teams in his long career, was an All-Star and threw a no-hitter.

Butcher had a nice first year with the Twins after being acquired from the Rangers. Through his time with the Twins, he "owned" the Baltimore Orioles and was 4-0 with a 1.80 ERA against them in '84.

My guess for the Trivia Question would be Paul Molitor, leading the AL in hits with the  Brewers, Blue Jays and Twins on his way to well over 3000 knocks.

I totally forgot that Mulholland threw a no-hitter. I was surprised to see he only made one All-Star team. I was at peak impressionability in 1993, so to this day any player who was an All-Star that year I just assume must have been a perennial All-Star [laughing emoji].

1 hour ago, Doctor Wu said:

Thanks for another trip down memory lane. I can't remember the last time I thought about guys like Mark Salas and John Butcher. Big smiles.

But this stat blew my mind:

Minnesota native Dave Goltz threw a 70-pitch two-hit shutout on October 1, 1974. 

A complete game shutout with only 70 pitches?! Insane! That leads me to wonder what the record is for the least number of pitchers in a full game shutout?

The Goltz one is unofficial (because MLB didn't officially keep track of pitch count at the time) but the official scorer at that game was keeping track anyway. 

The writing is kind of chaotic, but a number of years ago I attempted a blog post about interesting shutout trivia: https://twinsalmanac.com/high-hit-shutouts/

On 3/8/2025 at 8:06 AM, stringer bell said:

My guess for the Trivia Question would be Paul Molitor, leading the AL in hits with the  Brewers, Blue Jays and Twins on his way to well over 3000 knocks.

Concur.

Side note: Butcher's 81 pitch gem was in the midst of 4 consecutive 9 inning complete games.

In April no less.

Can you imagine? And his arm didn't spontaneously combust!!