It’s April 6, 1996, and it was fun while it lasted. The Twins beat up on Baltimore starter Jimmy Haynes en route to an 8-3 victory to put an end to the O’s perfect start.

By the third inning, it was already 6-0, and it was 8-0 by the time the O’s finally scored off Twins ace Brad Radke in the 7th. 

“You have to be patient,” O’s manager Davey Johnson said of Haynes’ poor performance. “Young pitchers take some time.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 7D, April 7, 1996)

Haynes, who was coming off giving up a shocking 12 runs in his final spring training start, was disappointed. “I was keeping the ball up in the zone,” he said. “And they were hitting it. I knew what I was doing wrong [mechanically] by the second inning. But by then, it was too late.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 7D, April 7, 1996)

It’s not clear how long of a leash Haynes will get, but he definitely has the hottest seat in the rotation to start the season. The O’s won’t need a fifth starter again until April 20, so he may pitch out of the bullpen until then. We’ll see how it goes.

In some happy news, righty Jimmy Myers made his major-league debut when he came in to relieve Haynes in the 5th inning. He now has 3 major league innings to add to the 900 he pitched in the minors. “I’m calling my wife,” he said. “I’m calling my mom. Then I’m calling everybody else.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 7D, April 7, 1996)

Third baseman B.J. Surhoff hit his first home run of the season, a solo shot off Twins reliever Pat Mahomes, who has a 6-month old son.

Outfielder Jeffrey Hammonds was 0-for-4, but he’s still hitting .333 and happy to finally be healthy. “I want to enjoy this, because the last 2½ years I haven’t had a lot of pleasant [times],” he said. “I don’t want to think about last year anymore. I can’t forget it, but I don’t want to dwell on it. All I can do is be happy knowing that I have an opportunity to play again”

Elsewhere in the AL East, the defending division champions, the Boston Red Sox, dropped to 0-5, their worst start since 1966, so not all is lost in Birdland. But to this point, all has been lost in Boston.

Anyway, the Sun looked back on the 4-0 start, during which the O’s:

Those were good times, but they are done for now. Momentum is only as good as the next day’s starting pitcher, and tomorrow the O’s have ace Mike Mussina on the mound.

Here is the box score with the not so lovely totals.

B.J. Surhoff, welcome to the wall!

Baltimore (4-1) at Minnesota (3-2), 2:05 p.m. ET

Starting Pitchers
BAL — RHP Mike Mussina, 1-0, 2.57 ERA
MIN — LHP Rich Robertson, 0-1, 32.40 ERA

A federal appeals court upheld the constitutionality of the bigoted “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that “bars known homosexuals from the armed forces.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 1A, April 6, 1996)

The disgraceful policy was a “compromise” in 1993 between President Bill Clinton — who campaigned on ending the military’s ban on openly gay people serving — and Congress. I’ll let the Sun explain the policy’s absurdity:

The article assumes that the next stop is the Supreme Court, but the high court would never take up the “don’t ask, don’t tell” case. The policy would be in place until Congress repealed it in 2010.

Welcome to a recurring segment where I find fun things in today’s (in 1996) Baltimore Sun!

Daylight savings time started a month later back in 1996.