Keeping Track

1987 Rewind: Game Nineteen

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MINNESOTA 10, CALIFORNIA 5 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Sunday, April 26.

Batting stars:  Roy Smalley was 2-for-3 with two doubles and a walk, scoring once and driving in three.  Gary Gaetti was 1-for-3 with a two-run homer (his sixth) and a walk, scoring twice.  Kirby Puckett was 2-for-5 with a home run (his sixth) scoring twice.

Pitching star:  George Frazier pitched three innings, giving up one run on no hits and two walks with two strikeouts.

Opposition stars:  Wally Joyner was 2-for-3 with two homers (his fourth and fifth) and three RBIs.  Brian Downing was 2-for-4 with a home run, his eighth.  Jack Howell was 2-for-4 with a double.

The game:  In the first, Kent Hrbek delivered an RBI single and later scored on Gaetti's two-run homer to put the Twins up 3-0.

Of Note:  Dan Gladden was 1-for-5 with a double and a run, making his average .300...Puckett raised his average to .351...Tim Laudner made only his third start of the season, going 0-for-4...Steve Lombardozzi was 1-for-3 with two walks and a home run...Bert Blyleven pitched six innings, allowing four runs on eight hits and a walk with seven strikeouts.  He apparently left two pitches up to Joyner and one to Downing.

Record:  The Twins were 12-7, in first place by a game over California.

Notes:  This was the first time all season the Twins used what I think of as their "regular" 1987 lineup:  Gladden, Lombardozzi, Puckett, Hrbek, Gaetti, Smalley, Brunansky, Laudner, and Gagne...The Angels starter was Urbano Lugo, a native of Venezuela.  He was signed in 1982.  He pretty much topped out at AA--he was pretty mediocre in AAA, but got some chances in the big leagues anyway.  It should be pointed out that his AAA seasons were in Edmonton in the Pacific Coast League, a hitters' league.  He was with California for much of 1985, spending too months in the rotation, where he wasn't great but wasn't awful, either.  He made only six major league appearances in 1986.  He began 1987 in the Angels' rotation, and this time he was awful, going 0-2, 9.32.  He made one more appearance for California in 1988, then moved on.  He was in the majors briefly with Montreal in 1989 and Detroit in 1990, never getting much accomplished.  For his career he was 6-7, 5.31, 1.55 WHIP in 162.2 innings.

12 thoughts on “1987 Rewind: Game Nineteen”

    1. Nah, he strikes out too much and doesn't take enough walks. He needs to hit the ball on the ground more and use his speed. He should learn to bunt better, too.

    2. He did have 31 homers in 1986.

      Bert has the reputation of being home run prone, but that wasn't true except for two years in his career: 1986 and 1987. Rally's WAR page* estimated Bert as -17 runs for his career but -47 for those two years alone. Subtracting out those two years puts him at +30 for his career. Now half of that came in 1973, but that still leaves him at +15 for his career.

      * In case anyone was wondering why baseball-reference's WAR is rWAR, it's because Forman adopted Smith's WAR.

            1. As fielding metrics improve, they'll converge too as UZR and DRS agree more. Then the largest difference between the two will be how to blame credit the pitcher: ERA or FIP.

          2. bWAR was commonly used back then for baseball-reference. Because the two were identical and to credit Rally, rWAR was chosen and it stuck. The fWAR term came about at the same time but its origin story is self-explanatory. Relatedly, I recall proposals to use WARp for Baseball Prospectus once they joined the WAR. I don't know if they have yet but it's still WARP.

            1. I figured bWAR & rWAR were stylistic choices akin to Chicago Turabian (woot!) vs MLA (hisssssssssss!), so this was informative.

              BPro does stubbornly stick to WARP, which feels both proprietary and redundant. It's the Blackberry 10 or Windows Mobile of replacement metrics.

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