MINNESOTA 3, KANSAS CITY 2 IN KANSAS CITY (11 INNINGS)
Date: Saturday, July 3.
Batting stars: Don Mincher was 2-for-5 with two home runs, his fifth and sixth. Harmon Killebrew was 2-for-5 with two doubles. Sandy Valdespino was 1-for-5 with a walk, a stolen base (his sixth) and a run.
Pitching stars: Jim Kaat pitched 4.2 innings, giving up two runs on five hits and two walks with two strikeouts. Al Worthington struck out two in 2.2 scoreless innings, giving up a hit and a walk. Bill Pleis pitched two perfect innings with one strikeout.
Opposition stars: Diego Segui struck out six in five innings, allowing two runs on four hits and three walks. Jim Landis was 2-for-5 with a double, scoring once and driving in one. John Wyatt struck out three in two perfect innings.
The game: Mincher homered in the fourth to put the Twins up 1-0, but Ed Charles had an RBI single in the bottom of the fourth to tie it. Tony Oliva singled in a run in the fifth, but again the Athletics got the run right back in the bottom of the fifth, this time on a Landis single. The Twins put the go-ahead run into scoring position in both the sixth and the ninth, but there was no more scoring until the eleventh, when Mincher led off the inning with his second home run. The Twins could have scored more, but left the bases loaded. In the bottom of the eleventh Ken Harrelson singled, was bunted to second, and took third on a ground out, but Dick Stigman came in to retire Dick Green on a fly out to end the game.
Of note: Zoilo Versalles was 0-for-6. Oliva was 1-for-5 with an RBI and a stolen base, his seventh. Jimmie Hall was 0-for-3.
Record: The win made the Twins 45-28 and moved them up into a tie for first place with Cleveland, who had lost 8-4 to Baltimore.
Notes: Sam Mele seemed to not know what he wanted to do with the lineup when Bob Allison did not start. He again batted Hall fourth but this time put Mincher fifth, with Killebrew dropping to the sixth spot. Hall's 0-for-3 dropped his average to .316 and he was pinch-hit for by Joe Nossek in the eighth. Kaat led the league in games started with 42 but seemed to get a lot of quick hooks. In this one, he was pulled with two on and two out in the fifth inning of a 2-2 game. He still pitched 264 innings, though, so it's probably a good thing he was pulled early a number of times.