Game 51: Twins at Tigers

First Pitch: 6:10 PM
TV: Bally Sports North Extra
Radio: TIBN, twinsbeisbol.com
Know Thine Enemy: Bless You Boys

I suspect this is true across the league, but Twins players rarely stick with high jersey numbers.

On their current roster:

• Max Kepler debuted in #67 before moving down to #26.
• Tyler Duffey moved from #56 to #21.
• Joe Ryan wore #72 last season and has #41 now (temporarily owning #40 before giving that up).
• Alex Kirilloff made his playoff debut in #76 and now wears #19.
• Trevor Larnach only played in the spring wearing #81, taking #24 last year and #13 this season.
• Bailey Ober donned #82 in 2021, then shifted down to #16 (after a brief sojourn in #17 which he yielded to Chris Archer).
• Griffin Jax went from #83 to #65.
• Gilberto Celestino wore #79 last year and is now #67.

The reason I ponder this is because Jermaine Palacios made his debut earlier today wearing #87, becoming the first Twin to wear that number, and he probably will not keep it as he advances in his MLB career. This saddens me, as I like unorthodox (which in the MLB usually means “high”) jersey numbers.

The one advantage the White Sox have over the Twins is their star players’ command of high jersey numbers, with stars like Eloy Jiménez (#74), José Abreu (#79), and Luis Robert (#88) wearing such numbers and making them their own. The Twins’ last position players to wear a high number for multiple seasons were Willians Astudillo (#64, now a Marlin) and Jake Cave (#60, now off the 40-man but having switched to #8 in the spring).

C’mon.

Beat Detroit again. Then we can talk about this.