A Weird Guy Showed Up
With the Angels series behind us, we were back on the road again.
This time, our opponents were the Minnesota Twins — a team from the American League Central.
And the AL Central… well, in its own special way, that division is something else.
When a season ends, you look at the standings and find maybe one team — two on a good year — that managed to finish above .500. They've been pulling that same act for over a decade now.
The teams that make up this division, known back in Korea as the "AL Jung," are the Chicago White Sox, the Cleveland Guardians, the Detroit Tigers, the Kansas City Royals, and the Minnesota Twins, whom we were about to face.
Detroit, whom we'd already played once, had been a thoroughly mediocre roster — but at least they had Borden, the best hitter in the game. Minnesota, on the other hand… had nothing. Absolutely nothing.
They'd clearly wanted to tank their way into a rebuild, but all they'd managed was the tanking part. The rebuild never came. That was the Minnesota Twins in a nutshell — and there was a reason they'd been the runaway last-place team even in a division everyone else treated like a freebie, and still were.
"If you're going to be like this, couldn't you share a little with our side? Sigh…"
Honestly, our division was just too much. Having us and the Yankees in the same division was already half the problem. Then you throw in Baltimore, Tampa Bay, and Toronto — every one of them a team that could catch fire and push us out if we slipped. There had even been a year when Baltimore took the division and Tampa Bay and Toronto both snuck into the wild card, knocking the Yankees and us out together.
Our East Division and Minnesota's Central. We were already flying back and forth constantly anyway — would it really kill anyone to mix things up a little? That was my private little thought as we touched down in Minnesota.
Everyone around me had been scaring me about how freezing it would be, so I'd braced myself — but once we got there, it didn't feel all that different from Boston. Though it could start getting cold any day now.
After the last series, Grandpa Manager had heaped praise on me. And I'd made clear in interviews that taking the mound in that game had been entirely my choice, that I hadn't been physically compromised at all. The manager had wanted to stop me, but I'd dug my heels in — that was the story he told, trying to wipe away the earlier criticism. The results had been good, so of course it all vanished exactly the way I'd intended, as if the criticism had never existed.
And then, after that:
"I'm thinking of giving you the rest of this Minnesota series off."
Grandpa Manager came at me with something a little different from what he'd promised. He'd said he'd only keep me out of the batter's box if he judged there was a problem with my stamina — and I'd just thrown seven clean innings with zero issues! But since we were facing a weak team like the Twins, he figured he'd give me a break.
Fine! Rest is good! Then don't even bring me on the road trip — just let me lounge around at home in Boston…
"But if we need you, I'd like you to be ready to pinch-hit late in a game."
What is this.
"Understood. No problem."
Of course, in front of Grandpa Manager I said it was fine and walked out. You couldn't exactly stand there and say, I don't want to do that pinch-hit crap, so I'm just going to rest in Boston!
And so we arrived in Minnesota.
"The stadiums these teams play in are all so shiny."
Detroit's home park, Comerica Park, had been the same way — and this place, Target Field, practically screamed brand-new ballpark. Of course, o-our stadium is cool too.
Taking the mound as our starter today was our number-three, Joe Greinsky. I happened to catch his bullpen session on the way past, and his face was full of confidence — the kind of look I hadn't seen on him before, like he figured the Minnesota lineup was something he could handle. Honestly, when you see that, you feel like you ought to tell someone not to get cocky, not to let their guard down…
I almost did. Then I looked at Minnesota's lineup again.
"Hmm… he might be fine."
I couldn't know for sure without being their owner or GM, but from where I stood, this team seemed determined to finish dead last by a mile this season. If you're going to lose, lose overwhelmingly! Something like that.
And I'll be completely honest here.
"If they played the Dragons, I think the Dragons would win."
I mean it. The Dragons looked more put-together.
Anyway. Our first game of the season against Minnesota went exactly the way we'd expected — and the way they had probably expected, and the way everyone had expected. We jumped out in front.
They started their number-one, a pitcher named Katsuma Yua. Roughly a ninety-three-mile average fastball and a forkball. He threw other pitches too, supposedly… but nothing that would play in the majors. In short, a two-pitch guy.
A two-pitch pitcher as the ace of the staff? In this day and age!
Which is why our hitters walked up looking for one thing and one thing only: the fastball. No matter how good your forkball is, you can't throw it all game. And honestly, the forkball itself wasn't all that…
The Japanese pitcher we'd faced against Baltimore — Endo Tsuyoshi, was it? That guy had been far better.
And the result of all that was this: three runs in the first, two in the second, four in the third. We knocked their starter out after three innings. Beat him so thoroughly he never had a chance to fight back, and hung nine runs on him.
Meanwhile, our starter, Joe Greinsky:
Joe Greinsky. Complete-game win vs. Minnesota — 9 IP, 1 ER.
Ta-da~
Game two went much the same. Our number-four, Jim Tomey, turned in seven strong innings with two runs allowed. And once again, the bats never stopped firing.
"Man, this is boring as hell…"
Maybe it was because I was used to playing every day and then suddenly sitting. Game one had been tolerable, but in game two I was stuck in a corner fighting to keep my eyes open, and I thought I was going to die. If there'd been some kind of crisis in the game, at least I could've watched on edge. But when you start by beating the other team into the dirt from the jump, tension doesn't stand a chance of existing.
Then came game three.
Our number-five, Karl Pollard, actually gave up the first run of the series. For the first time in three games, we were trailing. You could blame our hitters for failing to cash in a one-out, runners-on-second-and-third chance in the top of the first — but either way, we were behind.
"Maybe my chance will come…"
Crack!
"My chance…"
Crack!
"Chance…"
CRACK!!
"…… For fuck's sake."
Chance, my ass. Once we got past the fifth, they were going to start pulling the regulars anyway.
When the Minnesota series ended and we arrived in Milwaukee for the next road set, fresh news was waiting for us.
"What the hell is…"
The two prospects we'd sent to Minnesota — guys named Abreu and Nathan — I'd seen briefly in camp. One was a center fielder, the other a pitcher, if I remembered right… but I hadn't watched them long enough for anything to stick. And not watching them long meant they'd been cut from camp early, which meant… the team hadn't exactly been counting on them for much.
And we were giving up two prospects like that to bring back a team's number-one starter and their closer?
Did that even make sense?
The fact that the story broke the second the Minnesota series ended told me the talks had been going on for a while. Honestly, a guy like Katsuma Yua had only been a number-one because of Minnesota's situation — he wasn't really a starter. So if it had been a two-for-one, I might've shrugged it off…
But they'd thrown in their closer out of nowhere.
Of course, Blake Buxton had held down the cushiest pitching job in Major League Baseball. You have to actually get into games for the role to matter…
"They dumped him before free agency. No intention of keeping him."
The trade that had made no sense at all finally clicked a little once I heard that.
"Looks like our GM actually wants to win this thing."
I didn't know what the GM was thinking. Either way, our already solid bullpen was about to get a makeover.
First game against Milwaukee. Charles Patterson, who'd started once before, got another shot. Working with Eric behind the plate in the starter's gear, Patterson threw a pretty decent ball. Six innings, three runs. He'd given up a fair number of hits, but he'd gritted his way through the traffic, kept the big inning from happening, logged a quality start, and walked off the mound in a good mood.
We beat Milwaukee, stretching the win streak to five dating back to the last Angels game.
And for win number six, Rondo returned in game two. Five innings, one run. He pitched well in his first start back, and his pitch count wasn't that high — but Grandpa Manager pulled him right away. Age, probably. Didn't want to push him.
And the pitcher who came on in the bottom of the sixth was Katsuma Yua, who'd just joined us the day before.
He'd started a few days earlier, but he hadn't gone long. He'd thrown a decent number of pitches purely because he'd gotten hit so hard. Watching a guy who'd given up nine runs that day take the mound for our team…
We'd exchanged a quick greeting after he arrived. His expression hadn't been bad. Maybe he was just glad to have escaped Minnesota.
Why did I think that? Because I'd heard someone say exactly that. Not the Japanese guy — Blake Buxton. The second he walked in, he went off about finally getting out. I wondered if that was even okay… but everyone just laughed. So I guess it was.
Anyway. Katsuma Yua took the mound and showed a completely different side from his start. He jammed hitters with back-to-back forkballs and high fastballs, then dropped an unexpected curve for the strikeout. Two-pitch guy, they'd said — but the curve looked decent enough. Not something you'd throw often, but flashing it once in a while seemed fine. Looking at him like this, he actually seemed like a pitcher who could work in the majors…
Or had he been a bullpen guy all along?
From the sixth through the seventh, Katsuma Yua locked it down without allowing a single hit. I was genuinely impressed.
Then came the next pitcher — Blake Buxton, also freshly acquired from Minnesota.
Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
Three sinkers, first batter retired — and then he just stood there staring blankly at the sky.
"What the hell is that."
He kept looking up at the sky, muttering something, all the way until the next hitter stepped in.
"…We've got a weird one on our hands?"
Still, true to a guy who'd closed for a major league club, he handled the hitters just fine. Buxton shut down the eighth.
In the ninth, our closer — Kyle Biggio — finished it off.
"Shit… the bullpen just threw four scoreless innings?"
We brought in two guys, and just like that, the whole team's ceiling jumped.