MINNESOTA 5, LOS ANGELES 1 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Thursday, October 7.

Batting stars:  Harmon Killebrew was 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.  Tony Oliva was 1-for-4 with a double, scoring once and driving in one.  Zoilo Versalles was 1-for-5 with a triple and two runs.

Pitching star:  Jim Kaat pitched a complete game, giving up one run on seven hits and one walk with three strikeouts.

Opposition stars:  Sandy Koufax struck out nine in six innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on six hits and one walk.  Ron Fairly was 2-for-4 with a run.  Jim Lefebvre was 2-for-4.

The game:  No one got a hit until the fourth and there was no scoring until the sixth.  There nearly was in the fifth, though, as with none out and a man on first Bob Allison made an amazing sliding catch of a line drive down the left field line which is still talked about in Twins history.  The Twins broke through in the sixth when Oliva delivered an RBI double and Killebrew followed with a run-scoring single.  The Dodgers got on the board in the seventh when future Twin John Roseboro came through with an RBI single.  The Dodgers had men on second and third with one out, but Kaat struck out Don Drysdale (who was used as a pinch-hitter for Koufax) and retired Maury Wills on a short fly to center.  Versalles tripled and scored in the seventh and the Twins put it away in the eighth on a two-out two-run single by Kaat.

Of note:  Joe Nossek was 1-for-3.

Record:  The Twins took a 2-0 lead in the Series.

Notes:  Nossek replaced Jimmie Hall in center field.  One assumes the goal was again to gain a platoon advantage...Three future Twins played in this game:  Roseboro, Ron Perranoski, and Bob Miller...1965 was by far Drysdale's best year at the plate.  He hit .300/.331/.508 in 130 at-bats.  He only had one other season in which he hit over .200.  His seven home runs tied his career high, set in 1958...I'm sure pitchers have been used as pinch-hitters in the World Series on occasion, but I would think most of those times were when he was brought up to bunt or when the bench was exhausted.  When Drysdale pinch-hit in this game, he was the first substitute the Dodgers had used.  I wonder how many other times, if any, that's happened in the World Series--that a team used a pitcher to pinch-hit when they had their full bench available.