Twins Vault: Triple play times two

March 10th, 2022

MLB.com is digging back into its massive video vault to uncover classic plays that you have loved, forgotten about or, perhaps, are discovering for the very first time. Watch these moments and many, many more on the MLB Vault YouTube page.

July 17, 1990: Two triple plays turned against Red Sox
One triple play is already a crazy sight at the ballpark. Two is just about unheard of -- but not totally unheard of, because that's exactly what the fans at Fenway Park saw when the Twins went around the horn to turn three in the fourth inning and somehow again in the eighth. They remain the only team to turn multiple triple plays in a game. The first came with Scott Erickson on the mound and former Twins slugger Tom Brunansky at the plate, while the latter saw Jody Reed hit the chopper down the line, leading to another around-the-horn turn that didn't even make for another close play at first. Gary Gaetti (third base), Al Newman (second) and Kent Hrbek (first) were the infielders responsible for both plays.

July 11, 1978: Carew laces two triples, sets ASG record
It seemed that Rodney Cline Carew could do just about anything on the field with his baseball bat, and that went double against the finest pitchers the game had to offer -- rather, make it triple. Playing his final All-Star Game in a Twins uniform (and on his way to his seventh batting title), the future Hall of Famer faced off twice against Vida Blue for his first two at-bats of the 1978 Midsummer Classic at San Diego Stadium. Naturally hitting leadoff in the All-Star lineup, Carew yanked a liner over the head of NL left fielder Greg Luzinski for a triple to begin the game, and poked an identical drive to open the third inning. He slid safely into third base both times, making him the first -- and still only -- player with two triples in an All-Star Game.

June 28, 1998: Tewksbury uses eephus on McGwire
Ah, the summer of 1998, when anything seemed possible for Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa as a captivated nation watched with bated breath. McGwire already had 36 homers under his belt entering the finale of a three-game series at the Metrodome. That's when Twins right-hander Bob Tewksbury got the idea to take a rather unique approach to the slugger: Instead of trying to power the ball past the fearsome McGwire, he'd slow the ball way, way down instead. Somehow, it worked. He turned to a pair of eephus pitches with two outs in the top of the first, and McGwire rolled it over for a harmless groundout. Tewksbury went back to it in the fourth inning, and McGwire lofted that one for a popup to second base, eventually finishing 1-for-4 with a single. He did finish with 70 blasts that season, of course -- but none off Tewksbury.

May 28, 1993: Botched IBB sails wide, Twins win!
The days of the old-fashioned intentional walk are gone thanks to the institution of the automatic free pass in 2017. That means that the kind of snafu that benefited the Twins for a walk-off win against Cleveland in 1993 isn't possible anymore -- but we can enjoy it all the same.

With the game tied, 6-6, in the bottom of the ninth inning, Chuck Knoblauch led off with a single and Dave McCarty moved him to third with a double, bringing future Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett to the plate with a pair in scoring position and none out. Cleveland manager Mike Hargrove understandably called for an intentional walk, but right-hander Eric Plunk's first lob to the plate had a little too much cut to it, and the ball hit off the mitt of catcher Lance Parrish and skipped away. Knoblauch sprinted home with the walk-off run (a fitting descriptor).

May 20, 1995: Cordova homers in five straight
Four players in Minnesota Twins history have homered in five straight games -- and before Brian Dozier in 2016, you have to go back more than 20 years to 1995, when then-rookie Marty Cordova made quite the splash during his first full month in the big leagues with homers in five straight games in mid-May, driving in 12 in that span. The fifth of those came at the Metrodome off Tim Belcher of the Mariners, an opposite-field shot over the big baggie in right field. Harmon Killebrew (three times) and Nelson Cruz are the other two Twins to achieve the feat.

June 30, 2004: Lew!
Any page dedicated to remembering some folks from Twins history wouldn't be complete without the presence of one of the ultimate cult heroes from recent Twins history, Lew Ford. The outfielder, known to most Minnesotans simply as "Leeeeeeeewwwwww" (or so the chants at the Metrodome would go), initially took over for an injured Torii Hunter in 2003 and played well enough in limited time to earn regular reps, even earning down-ballot MVP votes after the Twins' playoff run in '04. Here he is in left field, taking a homer away from Carlos Lee of the White Sox that season. Did you know that he's still playing professional baseball as a player-coach for the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League?

June 4, 2001: Speedy Guzman runs Twins to victory
Speed kills -- and Cristian Guzman had plenty of it, as evidenced by the three seasons in which he led the Majors in triples. But he didn't even need to hit the ball that far to change the game, and he took that to the next level in a wild 2001 game against Cleveland. He caught the defense off guard with a two-out bunt in the seventh inning, and when reliever Ricardo Rincon airmailed the throw into right field and the ball rattled around the corner, Guzman never slowed down as he made a full circuit of the bases. Two innings later, Guzman hit a high chopper directly into the ground, bringing home the runner from third for a walk-off infield single.

July 2, 2006: Let's remember prime Liriano
Francisco Liriano announced his retirement from baseball on Monday following a 14-year big league career, so let's flash back to 2006, his tantalizing rookie season, when anything seemed possible for the 22-year-old left-hander. Wielding a wicked power slider (before arm issues changed his career), Liriano won 11 of his first 13 starts after moving to the rotation in mid-May. That included his July 2 clinic of a start against the Brewers, when he allowed three hits, walked one and hit another across eight shutout innings, and used that slider early and often to collect 12 strikeouts -- a career high at that point. It was his fifth straight victory, a stretch during which he collected 44 strikeouts while walking six.

Sept. 14, 1997: Ortiz wallops first big league home run
Twins fans need little reminder of the fact that David Ortiz's prolific career began in Minnesota, where he was first called up as a skinny 21-year-old in the final month of the 1997 season, five years before the club let him walk away and the legend of "Big Papi" was established in Boston. Fifty-eight of Papi's 541 career blasts came in a Twins uniform, and the very first of them came as part of a three-hit game on Sept. 14 in Texas, when he crushed a drive over the right-field wall (with that soon-to-be-famous swing) for a two-run blast off Julio Santana in the fourth inning. In another throwback for Twins fans, Ortiz drove in Marty Cordova with the shot.

Sept. 6, 2002: Radke ends A's historic streak
Remember that montage in the "Moneyball" film that spliced together footage from win after win after win for the Oakland A's as they mounted a historic 20-game winning streak? That scene might have lasted several more minutes had it not been for longtime Twins rotation fixture Brad Radke, who almost singlehandedly brought the run to an emphatic halt with a six-hit shutout in a 113-pitch effort in front of 27,409 fans at the Metrodome. Corey Koskie picked up three hits and two RBIs to lead the offensive effort in support of Radke's gem in Minnesota's 6-0 victory.