Keeping Track

1987 Rewind: Game One

19 Comments

MINNESOTA 5, OAKLAND 4 IN MINNESOTA (10 INNINGS)

Date:  Tuesday, April 7.

Batting stars:  Kirby Puckett was 3-for-5 with a home run and a double, scoring twice and driving in two.  Gary Gaetti was 2-for-4 with a triple and a walk, scoring once.  Steve Lombardozzi was 2-for-5 with a double and two runs.

Pitching stars:  Bert Blyleven pitched eight innings, giving up four runs on four hits and three walks with six strikeouts.  George Frazier pitched two shutout innings of relief, giving up one hit with one strikeout.

Opposition stars:  Alfredo Griffin was 1-for-4 with a two-run homer.  Mike Davis was 2-for-5 with a double and a stolen base, scoring once.  Curt Young struck out ten in seven innings, giving up three runs on five hits and three walks.

The game:  Oakland got on the board in the first, but Puckett hit a two-run homer in the third and Gaetti tripled and scored later in the third to make it 3-1.  The Athletics made it 3-2 in the fourth and Griffin's two-run homer in the fifth put Oakland up 4-3.  The Twins tied it in the eight on an RBI groundout by Kent Hrbek.  Lombardozzi opened the tenth with a single and a Puckett double put men on second and third.  Following an intentional walk to Gaetti, Hrbek delivered an RBI single to win the game.

Of note:  Hrbek was 2-for-5 with three RBIs.

Record:  The win made the Twins 1-0, tied for first place with California and Chicago.

Notes:  A good trivia question is:  Who was the Twins' starting left fielder in the first game of the 1987 season?  The answer is not Dan Gladden, who was the DH in that game.  It was not Randy Bush, either.  It was---Mark Davidson, in his only full season in the majors.  He started forty games that season, twelve of them in left field.  He played in 102 games, but had only 150 at-bats.  That would be the most at-bats he would get in a season, as he was a reserve for the Twins from 1986-88 and for Houston from 1987-89...Another lineup oddity on opening night is that Tom Nieto was the catcher, rather than Tim Laudner.  He started only thirty-six games that season.  The two lineup gambles did not work, as Davidson and Nieto combined to go 0-for-6 with a walk...Alfredo Griffin hit only three home runs in 1987 and never had more than four in a season.  Presumably, Blyleven left a pitch up.  And yes, we may very well use that line forty-six times during this series.

19 thoughts on “1987 Rewind: Game One”

  1. This was the first season that I followed the Twins daily from the beginning of the season. Kirby had his breakout season in 1986 and that got me interested in following baseball. Then TK becoming manager and the team's modest success at the end of the season under him (I think he was 6-5 or something like that as an interim manager before being officially named manager in the offseason) got me more excited about the team's success, plus the offseason move of trading for a true closer in Jeff Reardon.

    Anyways, I've always remembered the excitement of this first game and what stuck with me was a catch made by Kirby of him robbing an opponent of a home run over the short Metrodome fence, which became his signature catch because of his propensity to play deep and his ability to jump very high. Puckett robbed Mickey Tettleton of a home run leading off the 10th inning before setting up the winning run in the bottom of the inning. Here's a great writeup of the game.

    1. "We came into the dugout and the guys were going crazy," first baseman Kent Hrbek said about Puckett's catch. "It was like we had already won the game."

      "I didn't feel that way," manager Tom Kelly said, "but it's nice to know they did."

      Opening Day, and already the '87 Twins were in postseason form.

      Been a long time since I've seen anyone link to a Jim Thielman piece.

    2. You had the margin over .500 right for TK, just the wrong number of games. They were 12-11 with Tom Kelly as interim manager in 1986.

  2. First place! Woooooo!

    It'll be interesting to revisit how TK deployed his catching corps over the course of this season. Laudner got the most starts – nearly double the next guy on the list – but, looking at b-ref's lineup records, TK's strategy is pretty unclear.

    Also, I probably didn't actually have a million '87 Topps George Frazier cards, but it sure seemed like it. (Ray Fontenot was the worst offender, though. I was lousy with those two guys' cards and hardly ever scored a Bruno or Gagne, let alone a Puckett, Hrbek, Viola, or Blyleven. I don't think I ever got a Joe Niekro, either...)

    1. You may have actually have a million of them -- this was in the heart of the baseball card "Junk Wax" era, when Topps et. al. began their downward slide due to flooding the market with way too many cards.

      1. Even though they were overproducing cards, it still seemed like the distribution ratio of players I actually wanted compared to commons like Frazier or Fontenot that actually turned up was insurmountable.

        I will say, the '86 and '87 Topps remain two of my favorite full-run card designs of the period when I was actively collecting. '92 and '93 Upper Deck and '88 Score probably round out my Top Five.

        1. Those were also my two favorite years. Just beautiful cards. I was also stupid with George Frazier cards as well as Keith Atherton

          1. I had '88 Donruss Keith Athertons coming out my ears. I remember Allan Anderson being a frequent pull in that set, too.

    2. Nieto started the first 10 games for the Twins. He started to alternate starts and days off for a few weeks after that and then did not play between May 17 and Sept. 4, so he either got demoted or injured or both.

      1. Scot's initial piece on the 1987 Twins has Laudner as primary beneficiary of the Salas trade. That doesn't clear up Nieto's position as the primary catcher at the start the season.

        I found a Washington Post transaction report that has the Twins purchasing Nieto's contract from Portland for a September call up. What resulted in him being at Portland remains unclear, but I haven't had time to thoroughly search. He did play well (.838 OPS in almost 200 PA) in Indianapolis (Expos AAA) in 1986, and previously had solid seasons with Louisville.

        Not sure how that put him ahead of Laudner, who put up a good season for the Twins 1986: .784 OPS in 223 PA, or .244 BA & 10 HR in stats that had contemporary value. Was Laudner that bad behind the dish?

        1. IIRC, TK was notoriously hard on catcher defense. I believe he and Brian Harper had a love-hate relationship despite Harper being a very good hitter as a catcher.

        2. Nieto was acquired as part of the Jeff Reardon trade. He was the starting catcher into early May. He was still with the Twins until the middle of May. He played 53 games in Portland before the September call-up you mentioned. I'm guessing he may have gotten hurt and was sent to Portland upon his return. Maybe that will become clear as we go through the season.

        3. From the SABR bio on Laudner:

          After three more years as a part-time player, Laudner regained his status as the Twins’ number-one catcher in 1987. Although his batting average during the regular season was only .192, he hit a career-high 16 home runs and was regarded as the best catcher among a crew of several Minnesota had behind the plate that year.

  3. I was six years old at this time and remember almost nothing. And my bed time was 8 pm so its not surprising.

    Thankfully I do have vivid memories of watching the World Series.

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