On Tuesday afternoon, when 27-year-old right-hander Pablo López delivered his first pitch for the Minnesota Twins in opposition to the Toronto Blue Jays in Sport 1 of the 2023 AL wild-card collection, he was going up in opposition to almost 20 years of hardship in Minnesota Twins’ historical past.
Oct. 5, 2004, to be exact, a day ceaselessly cemented within the “Twin Cities” because it was the final time the Twins received a playoff recreation. Coming into Tuesday, the group’s 18 straight postseason losses marked the longest postseason dropping streak in America’s “Huge 4” sports activities.
On that date, George W. Bush was nonetheless in his first time period as president. In skilled sports activities, Rafael Nadal hadn’t even received his first French Open, whereas Novak Djokovic’s profession was simply getting began. Elsewhere guys named LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Carmelo Anthony simply completed their rookie years. Somebody named Aaron Rodgers was a junior at California, whereas Patrick Mahomes was simply 9 years previous. Then, for these social media followers, Instagram, X, the platform beforehand known as Twitter, and the iPhone had not but been created, whereas Fb was in its first 12 months ever. How’s that for some historical past?
Not like their earlier 18 tries, the nineteenth proved to be the appeal and that group that had been struggling to recover from the hump for almost twenty years was victorious as soon as once more on its house soil.
In entrance of an exhilarating crowd, Minnesota got here out weapons blazing within the first inning with a two-run house run off the bat of rookie third basemen, Royce Lewis. Lewis would once more hit a protracted ball within the third inning, changing into simply the second Twin ever to have a multi-home run playoff recreation.
