April 5, 2019: Jorge Polanco hits for cycle, but Twins’ wildness, fielding fiascoes lead to loss against Phillies

On April 5, 2019, the Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies played the first of a three-game interleague series in Philadelphia. Both teams had experienced early success, winning four of their first five games. Minnesota shortstop Jorge Polanco collected five hits while hitting for the cycle, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the Twins’ nine-walk, three-error meltdown as the Phillies rolled to a 10-4 win.

Polanco was a switch-hitter who had signed with the Twins as an amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic in 2009. He debuted in the majors in June 2014 and appeared to break through when he won Minnesota’s starting shortstop position in 2017 and recorded 46 extra-base hits. But a positive test for the steroid Stanozolol in spring training 2018 led to an 80-game suspension, costing him the entire first half of the season.1 He still managed 27 extra-base hits in 77 games for the Twins, who finished a distant second to the Cleveland Indians in the American League Central Division. Through five games in 2019, the 25-year-old Polanco was hitting .286 with two doubles and a triple.

Although the paid crowd at Citizens Bank Park was 28,021, newspapers reported that just a fraction actually came out to the ballpark, mainly due to the cold and rainy weather.2

A pair of right-handers were making their second starts of the season, and neither had earned a decision. For Philadelphia, Nick Pivetta had pitched 4 2/3 innings against the Atlanta Braves on March 30, allowing four earned runs in a game eventually won by the Phillies. In his third year in the majors, the 26-year-old Pivetta was aiming for his first winning record.3

For the visiting Twins, 29-year-old Jake Odorizzi got the starting nod. He had also pitched on March 30, yielding one earned run through six innings to the Cleveland Indians, but Minnesota’s bullpen gave up the game-winner in the ninth for the Twins’ only defeat so far. Odorizzi had also posted a losing record in 2018, but he would bounce back in 2019, earning a selection to the AL All-Star squad in his eighth big-league season.4

Pivetta ran into some trouble in the top of the first, when Polanco tripled on a full count to deep left-center with one out. The ball bounced off the top off the wall, beyond the reach of center fielder Odúbel Herrera.

Normally, Polanco would have been followed by newly acquired designated hitter Nelson Cruz. Batting .333, the 38-year-old Cruz was leading the Twins with six RBIs through their first five games.5 But playing in the Phillies’ ballpark meant that National League rules applied, and pitchers had to bat.6 Instead of Cruz coming up with a chance for another RBI, Eddie Rosario hit a pop fly to third baseman Maikel Franco, but it was not deep enough to drive in a run. C.J. Cron lined out to end the inning, stranding Polanco at third.

Half an inning later, the Twins were in a 5-0 hole. Odorizzi lasted just 36 pitches and two-thirds of an inning. He faced seven batters and allowed three walks, Jean Segura’s RBI double, and Rhys Hoskins’ RBI single. Second baseman Jonathan Schoop was charged with a throwing error on Segura’s double.

Odorizzi was pulled by first-year manager Rocco Baldelli after walking César Hernández to load the bases with two outs. This was the shortest outing of Odorizzi’s career to date, in more than 150 career starts. By hooking his veteran starter, Baldelli “burned through his bullpen,” using six hurlers in this series opener.7

Ryne Harper, a 30-year-old rookie appearing in his second big-league game, relieved Odorizzi, and his first pitch to Franco resulted in a double to short right field. Hoskins and J.T. Realmuto scored on the hit and Hernández came home on right fielder Jake Cave’s throwing error. All three runs were charged to Odorizzi. Harper struck out Pivetta, but the Phillies had batted around.

The Twins chipped away in the top of the third. Ehire Adrianza grounded a single through the right side, and Max Kepler followed with his first home run of the season, making the score 5-2. With a steady rain falling, Polanco singled to center, but Pivetta retired the next three batters, again stranding Polanco.

The Phillies added a run in their half of the third against Martín Pérez, the third Twins’ pitcher of the game. Hoskins reached on a walk and Realmuto, acquired two months earlier in a trade with the Miami Marlins, grounded a potential double-play ball to second, but Cron dropped Schoop’s throw to first, and Realmuto was safe. Herrera singled, advancing Realmuto to third, and he scored on Hernández’s sacrifice fly.

The score remained 6-2 until the fifth. Polanco led off the inning by blasting Pivetta’s first pitch just inside the right-field foul pole for a home run. Two singles and a Philadelphia error contributed to pitcher Pérez scoring Minnesota’s fourth run. 

Pérez had kept the Phillies from scoring in the fourth and fifth frames, but in the sixth, the lefty gave up two walks after getting two long fly-ball outs. Aaron Altherr pinch-hit for Pivetta and doubled, bringing Hernández across the plate with Philadelphia’s seventh run.

In the bottom of the seventh, more Minnesota miscues enabled the Phillies to make it a rout. Adalberto Mejía was on now on the mound for the Twins. He got two quick outs but loaded the bases on two walks and a single. Hoskins grounded a hit to left fielder Rosario, but Rosario “dithered after fielding a single, long enough for Bryce Harper to trick him and score from first.” As Harper pulled into third base after two runners had scored, Rosario still had not gotten the ball back to the infield, so Harper – lured to the Phillies with a 13-year, $330 million free-agent contract in the offseason – took off for home and scored.

After the game, Hoskins told reporters that “[y]ou can’t teach that. I asked [third-base coach] Dusty [Wathan] if he sent him, and he didn’t. It was all Bryce.”8 The Phillies now led 10-4.

Polanco’s first three hits had all come batting left-handed. With lefty Adam Morgan on the mound, Polanco led off the top of the seventh batting right-handed and lined the ball down the left-field line. It rolled into the corner and Polanco pulled into second base, completing the cycle. He was again stranded, as the next three Twins hitters were retired.

Polanco added another single in the ninth (batting left-handed again, this time against Phillies right-hander David Robertson) for his first career five-hit game, but he did not advance. In his past four games, he was batting .500 (10-for-20) with five extra-base hits. For the young season, his average jumped from .167 to .423.

Minnesota pitchers walked nine Philadelphia batters. The fielders behind them committed three errors: two in the five-run first inning and the other when third baseman Marwin Gonzalez overran a routine popup. Add Rosario’s lackadaisical performance in the seventh and a passed ball by catcher Jason Castro, and Minnesota’s fielding “fiasco was a group effort.”9

Hoskins led the Phillies’ attack with three hits and four RBIs. Herrera added three singles but did not score a run or drive one in. Pivetta earned his first win of the season despite allowing nine hits and all four Twins runs (three earned) in five innings pitched. Philadelphia improved to 5-1 while the Twins fell to 4-2. The Phillies had now scored at least five runs in each of their first six games to start the season, the first time that had happened since 1898,10 and they had outscored their opponents by 49 to 26.

Despite the horrific defensive and pitching performance by the Twins, Polanco sent his shoes to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.11 It was the first cycle by a Twins batter in 10 years12 and the 15th in franchise history (11th since the franchise moved to Minnesota). Polanco accumulated 11 total bases, getting five of Minnesota’s 11 hits. The Phillies also had 11 hits and had 11 batters come to the plate with runners in scoring position. (They notched five hits.) Additionally, there were 11 pitchers in the game.

Polanco’s hitting display was also the first cycle allowed by Philadelphia pitching since Washington’s Brad Wilkerson accomplished the rare feat on April 6, 2005.

Polanco was voted to his first All-Star Game in 2019 and finished 13th in the AL MVP voting. He ended the season batting .295 with 69 extra-base hits and 79 RBIs, both career highs as of 2024. The Twins won the AL Central Division championship with a 101-61 record.13

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, MLB.com, Retrosheet.org, and SABR.org.

Video highlights of Polanco’s cycle can be seen at https://www.mlb.com/video/polanco-hits-first-cycle-of-2019.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI201904050.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2019/B04050PHI2019.htm

Notes

1 “Suspended Polanco Speaks to Teammates,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, March 22, 2018: C6.

2 Rob Maaddi, “Hoskins, Early Lead Key to Win,” LNP Always Lancaster (Lancaster, Pennsylvania), April 6, 2019: C1. The Phillies and Twins played through the early-spring weather. Amazingly, only two games (scheduled for June 17 and 18) were rained out at Citizens Bank Park.

3 Pivetta’s record in his rookie season (2017) was 8-10, with a 6.02 ERA. He followed that in 2018 with a 7-14 mark, although he improved his ERA to 4.77.

4 After losing his first two decisions in April, Odorizzi won 10 straight decisions, dropping his ERA to 2.24 by mid-June.

5 Cruz had signed with Minnesota as a free agent on January 2, 2019. He put up some career numbers by season’s end, batting .311 in 120 games, his highest batting average in nine seasons. His .639 slugging average and 1.030 OPS were both career highs. He finished the season in the top 10 of the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award voting, and he garnered his third Silver Slugger Award.

6 The designated hitter rule was adopted by the American League in 1973, but pitchers continued to hit in games played at National League parks (interleague play began in 1997). The designated hitter was adopted by the National League as part of the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement. “Designated Hitter Rule,” MLB.com, https://www.mlb.com/glossary/rules/designated-hitter-rule. Accessed April 2025.

7 Scott Lauber, “Franco, Hoskins Star on Wet Night,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 6, 2019: C3. The Twins used a total of 15 pitchers in the three games (five in the second game and four in the final game of the series).

8 Lauber.

9 La Velle E. Neal III, “One Rose among the Thorns,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, April 6, 2019: C3.

10 Scott Lauber, “Franco, Hoskins Star on Wet Night.” The average of more than eight runs per game prompted Lauber to praise their hitting, projecting that the team was on pace to score 1,323 runs. Since the 1901 season, the 1930 Phillies hold the single-season franchise record for most runs scored with 944. The 2019 Phillies cooled off, scoring just 774 runs in their 162-game season.

11 Neal, “One Rose among the Thorns.”

12 On May 22, 2009, Michael Cuddyer became the 14th player in franchise history (Washington and Minnesota) to hit for the cycle as the Twins defeated the Milwaukee Brewers, 11-3. As of the beginning of the 2025 season, Polanco’s accomplishment was the last cycle for a Twins player.

13 They lost the AL Division Series to the New York Yankees, three games to none. The Phillies came in fourth in the NL East Division at 81-81.