BALTIMORE — The Twins visited the White House on Tuesday. Well, some of them.
They would like someday to bring the whole squad back to celebrate a championship with the president, but for four players — Brian Dozier, Trevor Plouffe, Glen Perkins and Joe Mauer — their off-day visit was more than memorable.
"It was awesome," Dozier said of the two-hour visit on Tuesday, which team president Dave St. Peter arranged through an important acquaintance: White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, a Stillwater native and Twins fan who has been President Obama's top aide for three years. "We got the exclusive tour. [McDonough] gave us a lot of information and history in each room. He spent a lot more time with us than we deserved, actually."
Six other members of the traveling party were invited along: General manager Terry Ryan, manager Paul Molitor, equipment manager Rod McCormick, communications director Dustin Morse, bullpen catcher Nate Dammann and director of team travel Mike Herman. At one point, when the president went down the hall for a meeting with his military leaders, the group was ushered into the Oval Office.
"There was something about being in that setting — pretty surreal," Dozier said. "[McDonough] told us about the [president's] Resolute Desk, all different kinds of stuff. It was pretty cool."
They didn't get to meet President Obama, though "he was in the next room a couple of times," Dozier said.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most of the Twins, though Molitor has been to the White House a handful of other times, once even serving as captain for a Miracle League baseball game (for developmentally disabled children) on the White House lawn.
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Their off-day field trip over, the Twins try to avoid their fifth 0-2 start in the last six seasons tonight, and they'll do it with the same lineup they used for Monday's 3-2 loss. In fact, the Orioles have the same batting order, too, to face Twins starter Kyle Gibson.
"You look at Kyle, some people have a tendency to think that he's this five- [or] six- [or] seven-year veteran, the way he goes about his business. But really, he's still relatively young as a starting pitcher, in terms of experience in this league," Molitor said. "Ii would think he's still on his way up."
Molitor made one change to his plans in the wake of Ervin Santana's two-inning, rain-interrupted start on Monday. Santana threw a light bullpen session Wednesday afternoon, and will start again on Friday in Kansas City. That moves Tommy Milone and Ricky Nolasco's scheduled starts back a day, to Saturday and Sunday, with Gibson still starting the home opener next Monday.
Since he'll now have more than a week between outings, Nolasco will be in the Twins' bullpen tonight, available in case of emergency.
Here are the lineups for Game 2:
TWINS
Dozier 2B
Mauer 1B
Sano RF
Plouffe 3B
Rosario LF
Park DH
Escobar SS
Suzuki C
Buxton CF
Gibson RHP
ORIOLES
Machado 3B
Jones CF
Davis 1B
Trumbo RF
Wieters C
Alvarez DH
Hardy SS
Schoop 2B
Rickard LF
Gallardo RHP