![]() In between, the Twins lost 13 postseason games in a row, at two different homes. Before Tuesday, their last postseason win at home was Game 1 of the 2002 ALCS, when Joe Mays beat Anaheim - in the palatial Metrodome. They could lose pretty much anywhere over these last 19 years. And until Tuesday night, they’d only won two postseason games that Santana didn’t pitch in since Jack Morris walked off the mound in 1991! So in games started by pitchers not named Santana, the Twins lost (take a deep breath now) 25 games in a row. He was the winning pitcher in the Twins’ most “recent” postseason win … and also the starting pitcher in the win before that (in 2003). Don’t even think about how long this Twins losing streak would have lasted if Johan Santana had never found his way to the Great Lakes. (The White Sox and Royals even won.) … Those other four AL Central teams won 83 postseason games in the time the Twins were winning zero. Incredible.Īll four other AL Central teams made it all the way to the World Series. … But the Twins? They couldn’t figure out a way to win one postseason game. … The Cubs won a World Series after forgetting to do that for 108 years. … The White Sox won their first World Series after an 88-year intermission. The Red Sox broke their curse and won four World Series, all while the Twins were winning zero games in October. In between Twins postseason wins … Every other team in the sport won at least two postseason games, because of course they did. But for a series of actual playoff teams in Minnesota to lose 18 straight? Incomprehensible. So it’s semi-understandable for a bunch of terrible teams to find a way to lose 18 in a row (or more). … And Ben Ogilvie’s 1975 Tigers also ripped off 19 in a row - as they were traveling the 57-102 freeway. … Runelvys Hernandez’s 2005 Royals lost 19 straight - on their way to 106 losses. … Pedro Severino’s 2021 Orioles lost 19 in a row - and wound up losing 110. Jeff Stone’s 1988 Orioles lost their first 21 in a row - and went on to lose 107 that year. And let’s just say, you wouldn’t describe any of them as “playoff teams.” ![]() In the last 50 years, just four teams have lost 18 “regular” games in a row (or more). How hard is it to lose 18 games in a row? Let’s start there, because even in the regular season, it’s almost impossible. You’ve never read one of these columns before, huh? So let’s put that baby in the weirdest (and wildest) perspective we can. But if you thought the Weird and Wild column was going to let that other streak - that 19-years-between-postseason-wins streak -just slide by, well, ho ho ho. OK, that may be the streak he wants to focus on. We’re 1-0, and that’s the one we want to focus on now.” And afterward, the winning pitcher, Pablo López, was announcing: “The way I see it now, we have a new streak going. An 18-game, 6,937-day postseason losing streak was finally ancient history. So the Twins did something no high school student in the state of Minnesota had ever seen them do: ![]() And you know why we still remember it vividly? Because for a while there, it looked as if they were determined to spend the rest of the 21st century never winning another one.īut then, Tuesday afternoon, the Twins showed up at Target Field and the Yankees forgot to stop by to beat their brains in. Well, I’ll tell you what the Minnesota Twins were doing. 5, 2004? Waiting around all day for the latest episode of “Veronica Mars”? Trying to figure out how to work that newfangled iPod thing you just bought? Posting your first homecoming photos on that cool new site, Facebook? Kyle Farmer and Donovan Solano celebrate the Game 1 win, which ended the Twins’ epic streak.
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