En route to a 14-1 loss to the New York Yankees, Minnesota Twins manager Paul Molitor decided it wasn’t even worth it to use real pitchers.
What a fantastic day of New York Yankees baseball.
Giancarlo Stanton dominated, Gleyber Torres got his first hit, Didi Gregorius hit a grand slam, but most importantly, the Minnesota Twins used a position player as a pitcher.
Centerfielder Ryan LaMarre entered the game in the eighth inning and gave up a home run to Tyler Austin in 0.2 innings of work.
Position player pitching! The #Twins are calling on centerfielder Ryan LaMarre with one out in the eighth inning.
— Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) April 24, 2018
If you think there’s anything better in the game of baseball than a team being forced to put a position player on the mound, you are 10,000 percent wrong. Winner-take-all playoff games pale in comparison to an outfielder stepping up on the mound and tossing in some slow looping fastballs that get mashed 450 feet.
Unfortunately, the position-pitcher only appears on rare occasions. The more common is a close game that lasts 20 innings and completely burns the bullpen. In that case, bringing a position player in to pitch is the only option left and the game doesn’t last too much longer.
On another note, I’m confident if the Yankees ever found themselves in that situation, they would be absolutely fine. Aaron Judge and Aaron Hicks definitely throw gas and there’s no chance that Ronald Torreyes can’t spin a curveball that would make Clayton Kershaw jealous.
The Yankees, however, were so ridiculously dominant that Twins manager Paul Molitor decided it wasn’t even worth it to throw out another reliever during a six-run eighth inning for the bombers. The offense clicked on all fronts and as a result, the opposing team decided they would rather let their center fielder get teed off on than use another reliever.
To his credit, LaMarre actually managed two outs fairly easily, getting an anxious Hicks way out ahead of a mid-70s fastball and red-hot Miguel Andujar to ground out into a shift. Austin, however, did what just about everyone expected a professional hitter to do. He took the center fielder to the Twins bullpen.
Unfortunately for Yankees fans, Molitor managed to save a good chunk of his bullpen so we likely won’t be seeing another position-pitcher.
With any luck though, the Yankees will charge out to another insurmountable lead and Molitor will have to make the call to the outfield, once again treating fans with the greatest experience in baseball.
