Twins Opening Homestand 2023

All photos of 2023 Twins Opening Homestand available on Flickr.

The Nagels are back in Minnesota this week, because it only makes sense to go somewhere colder over Spring Break, right?  In all seriousness, the weather has been amazing thus far during our visit, and literal feet of snow have melted off of the grass since we've been here.  The weather even got to the point where I decided it wouldn't be a crazy idea to go to an evening Twins game in April.  My father-in-law and I made the trek down to Minneapolis for Tuesday night's game, and left about 3pm with the mercury approaching 80°.  We were hoping to catch some BP, but we were very disgusted upon our arrival to find that gates do not open for Twins weeknight games until 1 hour before first pitch, so we instead took a couple of laps around the stadium before entering right at 5:30.  We couldn't help but notice all of the Washington Senators World Series champion banners along the back side of the stadium that neither of us had noticed previously, but otherwise not much new on the outside from last season.  We grabbed a couple of beers at the Gray Duck bar in left field and watched the end of batting practice before heading down to our 3rd row seats in the left field corner.

It was not lost on me how fortunate we were to have such beautiful weather this early in the season in a colder climate city like Minneapolis, and that was certainly the buzz around the stadium even more so than the game itself.  Paid attendance was only about 16,000 and I was honestly shocked it was not higher given this rare occurrence.  As a Brewers fan, I try not to take our retractable roof for granted and how invaluable it is in horrible weather, but it's nights like last night that make it worthwhile to sit through a few 40° days and a few snow-outs to get to enjoy an entire season of outdoor baseball - the way the game is meant to be experienced.  Target Field is still in my top 3 of favorite MLB stadiums, and that just wouldn't be the case if it had a roof, no matter how gorgeous it was.  Being an hour away from Target Field is one of many things that is helping settle my anxiety of moving to small-town Minnesota next year.  We didn't get to walk around the inside of the park too much yesterday, but neither of us really wanted to.  We were more than content enjoying a tall, cool glass of Mich Golden and soaking in the sun as much as we could.  I cannot wait to be spending more time at this ballpark in the coming years and I will have plenty of time to explore in coming visits (including dropping an unreasonable amount of money at the team store on newly branded gear).

The game was a very exciting win for the Twins on a very brisk evening, both in terms of the breeze and the pace of play.  Had the game not gone into extra innings, the game time would have only been about 2 hours, but 2:23 for a 10-inning game still would have been unheard of last year.  I've been very pleased with the increased action in the couple of games I've been to this year, outside of the lesser time to buy beer which some teams are now starting to address.  The Twins defeated the White Sox 4-3 on what might have been the first walk-off sac bunt I've ever seen.  I've definitely seen a walk-off squeeze a few times, but this was a situation where Michael A. Taylor was merely trying to advance the "ghost runner" to 3rd in the bottom of the 10th, and the charging 3rd baseman errantly threw to 1st on the bunt, allowing the runner at 2nd to round all the way home.  It was a rough game for Hanser Alberto, as he grounded out as a pinch hitter in the 10th for Chicago, and then essentially lost the game on his first fielding opportunity in the bottom half of the inning.  The two stories of the game were the dominant pitching performance of Pablo Lopez, and Byron Buxton's 100th career homerun.  Lopez was the key piece in the offseason Luis Arraez trade and was stellar after a 1st inning hiccup, striking out 10 White Sox in 7.2 innings and only 98 pitches.  Had this been a July game, I'm sure Lopez would have been allowed to finish the game.  Fireballer Jhoan Duran gave up the lead on the very first pitch of the 9th inning just as most of the patrons in attendance were starting to file out, but as I've said a hundred times - you never know what you're going to see at the ballpark, so never leave a game early!  Lance Lynn got the start for the White Sox and sneakily struck out 10 over 6 - about as sneaky as a 270 pound man can be.

We'll be back in Minnesota for a couple of weeks in June, and I am looking forward to returning to watch the Twins battle the Crew!

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 4/12/23:

Brewers 8-3; 4 @ Padres, 3 @ Mariners, 3 v. Red Sox

Twins 7-4; 4 @ Yankees, 3 @ Red Sox, 3 v. Nationals

2023 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 0

Peter - 2