No Bull—Vote Dozier!
Brian Dozier had a really good season for the Minnesota Twins in 2014: 156 G, 23 HR, 21 SB, 114 OPS+. He was developing into a clear franchise building block. That production continued in 2015, when Dozier also became a leadership bastion alongside Torii Hunter.
But despite his growing stature in Twins Territory, Dozier was an All-Star afterthought in the ’15 main voting and—even with a strong “No Bull—Vote Dozier” fan campaign—lost the Final Vote to Mike Moustakas (this being the year Kansas City Royals fans spammed the ballot).
Yet, Dozier would not allow such oversight to obfuscate his opportunity. Even with the team sagging to a 43-39 mark after a hot start, in the Twins’ last homestand heading into the AS Break Dozier put the boys on his back and ultimately punched a ticket to the stars.
7/6/15
Opening a series against the Baltimore Orioles, SP’s Phil Hughes & Wei-Yin Chen battled to a 2-2 stalemate through six innings. A parade of MN firemen—Brian Duensing, Casey Fien, Glen Perkins, & Trevor May—kept the Birds from chirping through the 10th.
In the second walk-off opportunity, Danny Santana slapped a one-out single off O’s reliever Tommy Hunter. Dozier than hung Hunter’s next hurl into LF humanity…
7/8/15
Two days later, Brian banged a go-ahead homer in the eventual 5-3 Twins victory over BAL.
7/10/15
The coup de gras came on a magical Target Field Friday night.
It began as anything but bewitching: Ervin Santana got rocked (4 IP, 6 ER) and Justin Verlander shoved (7.2 IP, 1 ER) en route to a 6-1 9th inning lead for the visiting Detroit Tigers.
That’s when a comeback for the ages commenced:
Against DET mop-up man Bruce Rondon, Joe Mauer singled & Miguel Sano doubled. Trevor Plouffe whiffed—but Eddie Rosario singled and the deficit was 6-2.
Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images
That brought Tiger closer Joakim Soria into the game—but the hits just kept on coming!
After Rosario swiped second, Aaron Hicks walked & Kurt Suzuki was struck by the sphere—now it was 6-3. A Danny Santana single moved everyone up a station and pulled the Twins to within two (6-4).
That’s when Brian stepped into the batter’s box.
I’ll never forget watching from my Burnsville, MN apartment as the comeback unspooled that night—from “I’m watching to be a completionist” to “well, at least we’ll go down swinging” to “hey, this is getting interesting” to “holy cow we have a chance to tie/win this thing!” all in the span of ten minutes.
The first pitch Dozier saw from Soria?
Absolute pandemonium at Target Field, in my apartment, and all throughout Twins Territory! In the span of five calendar days, Brian Dozier had brought MN back from the doldrums.
MIN would go on to sweep the Motor City Kitties that weekend and improve to 49-40. On the final Sunday afternoon before the break, a special announcement came over the PA:
Dozier would be heading to Cincinnati for the 2015 MLB All-Star Game after all!