The ten dumbest things that happened to the Twins in 2018

The Twins had a very difficult 2018 season, we all know this. It was a frustrating year, and at times it was really hard to watch. Sometimes, though, bad baseball produces plenty of moments that we’re able to laugh at and enjoy, on some level. The Twins 2018 season was just as stupid as it was disappointing, and many dumb things happened. Here are a few of my favorites.

1. Three consecutive games being snowed out

The Twins were supposed to play a weekend series against the White Sox from April 13th to 15th. It snowed each one of those days. Snow in April isn’t all that unusual, but three games postponed due to weather in a row is very weird. The three games were made up in June, August, and September. The Twins had giveaways scheduled for the April 13th and 14th games, and those were also moved. The three consecutive postponements should have been enough of a warning sign for us that this was going to be a really odd season.

2. The Twins acquiring David Hale from the Yankees, having him pitch in one game, and then re-signing with the Yankees

Perhaps the best way to describe David Hale’s 2018 season is “weird.” On April 26th, he was claimed on waivers by the Twins from the Yankees. On April 27th, he made his Twins debut, allowing four runs on four hits. He pitched three innings, gave up a home run, and walked four. On April 28th, the Twins designated him for assignment. The Yankees picked him up again in May, and designated him for assignment in June. He is now pitching in South Korea for the Hanwha Eagles, where he made the playoffs, and lost in the KBO equivalent of the divisional series, three games to one. I’m very happy for him, and I’m glad he got a taste of playoff baseball!

3. Fernando Rodney throwing a pitch that broke FoxTrax

Look at this for a second:

The very best thing about this, in my opinion, is everyone just looking at it as it goes so far outside that nobody knows what to do. The other thing that I absolutely love about this is the fact that FoxTrax — Fox Sports’ pitch tracker — actually managed to track the pitch all the way to the backstop. The technology was probably off its rocker because it had never tracked a pitch that far outside before. What I want to know is this: what pitch was Fernando throwing here? It was 66 MPH and missed everything. Maybe a curveball? We may never know the answer.

4. Miguel Sano getting sent down to Single-A

Miguel Sano did not have his best season in 2018. Oftentimes when a player struggles, a team’s front office will decide to send him down to the minors, allowing the player to work on his game some more in a slightly easier setting. Usually they’ll go to Triple-A, which is, of course, one step down. Miguel Sano, for some reason, was sent all the way down to Single-A.

Miguel had a tough time making his way back to the majors this season. His struggle was partly due to injury, but I’d imagine that having to make your way back up from the very bottom level of the minors would take a while, even without getting hurt.

5. The Twins September 2nd game against the Rangers

On September 2nd, the Twins played the Texas Rangers. Both teams were out of contention at this point, so there wasn’t a ton to play for anymore. The game started with a home run by Elvis Andrus to put the Rangers up 2-0. The Rangers added one more to go up 3-0 after 5. Pretty standard score after 5 innings. Still enough time for a comeback! And then came the bottom of the 6th.

Addison Reed was also ejected during that 6th inning for hitting Adrian Beltre [Editor’s note: smdh at you, Reed]. As is common in Twins blowouts, Chris Gimenez came in to pitch. He gave up five more runs and then hit a two run home run, because this game was weird and it needed to get weirder. It is the dumbest Twins game I have ever seen.

6. Max Kepler falling down while trying to get the ball back in from the outfield

I don’t exactly know what happened here, but it was really weird.

The Blue Jays play on turf, so I’m going to cut Max some slack here. Maybe he lost his footing on the surface and then went down? But I think this is really funny nonetheless, partly because it reminds me of one of my favorite GIFs of all time:

Classic.

7. Byron Buxton’s very unlucky 2018 season

Byron Buxton only played in 28 games this season. He was placed on the DL due to migraines prior to the Twins’ trip to Puerto Rico, and then broke his toe fouling a ball off his foot during a rehab assignment the next week. The Twins tried to call up Buxton a few weeks later, but his toe wasn’t properly healed, meaning Buxton couldn’t truly run — and if Buxton can’t truly run...

8. This Is How We Base Ball

Every year, the Twins come out with a new ad campaign before the season. This year’s was really, really stupid. What does “This Is How We Base Ball” even mean? At some point in the history of baseball, the name of the sport was written as base ball, but in the early to mid 20th century, it began to be written as one word. Whoever came up with this ad campaign did not know this. Anyway, this raises a question. How DO we Base Ball? Why do we Base Ball? Bring back the “This Is Twins Territory” commercials!

9. All of those walk-off losses

The Minnesota Twins lost 84 games this season and fifteen of those 84 losses (about 18%!) came on walk-offs. That’s A LOT of walk-off losses. Three separate times, the Twins opponents got a walk-off win twice in a single series. The Twins first loss of the year was even a walk-off loss. On Opening Day, Adam Jones homered off Fernando Rodney to give the Orioles a 3-2 win. The Orioles would go 46-115 the rest of the season.

10. Eduardo Escobar starting a bench clearing brawl

In the seventh inning of the July 15th Twins-Rays game, which the Twins won 11-7 in 10 innings, Eduardo Escobar took issue with something that was said by third baseman Daniel Robertson, and the benches cleared. The relievers even jogged in from the bullpen to join in on the fun — because what else do relievers do?