MINNESOTA 2, NEW YORK 0 IN NEW YORK
Date: Saturday, May 9.
Batting stars: Al Newman was 2-for-3 with a triple and a double, driving in two. Steve Lombardozzi was 1-for-2 with a double and a run. Mark Davidson was 1-for-3 with a double and a run.
Pitching stars: Les Straker pitched 5.2 scoreless innings, giving up two hits and three walks with two strikeouts. Juan Berenguer struck out three in 2.1 scoreless innings, giving up a hit and two walks. Jeff Reardon pitched a scoreless ninth, giving up a walk and a hit batsman.
Opposition stars: Dennis Rasmussen pitched a complete game, giving up two runs on six hits and no walks with two strikeouts. Dan Pasqua was 0-for-1 with three walks. Rickey Henderson was 1-for-3 with a walk and a stolen base, his thirteenth.
The game: In the third, Lombardozzi doubled, went to third on a groundout, and scored on Newman's squeeze bunt. In the fifth, Davidson doubled, was bunted to third, and scored on Newman's triple. The best scoring chance for the Yankees came in the ninth, Willie Randolph led off with a double, bringing Reardon into the game. A one-out walk to Pasqua and a two-out hit batsman (Gary Ward) loaded the bases. Mike Pagliarulo then popped up to end the game.
Of note: Kirby Puckett was 2-for-4.
Record: The Twins were 16-13, in third place, a half game behind California and Kansas City.
Notes: Puckett raised his average to .351...Straker lowered his ERA to 1.45...Newman played shorstop, replacing Greg Gagne...Davidson was once again in right, with Tom Brunansky at DH and Roy Smalley out of the lineup...I seem to remember Dan Pasqua as a better player than he was, although he was decent at his peak. He came up to the Yankees in 1985 and was never more than a part-time player there, playing mostly as a corner outfielder. He was traded to the White Sox after the 1987 season and that's where he had his best years. He posted an OPS of .842 in 1990 and .823 in 1991, hitting a total of thirty-one homers in those two seasons. He fell off sharply after the 1991 season, never topping .220 in batting average or reaching double-digit homers again. A left-handed batter, he could not hit left-handed pitching even in his best years. In fact, it appears that one reason they were his best years is that the White Sox stopped playing him against portsiders. His career ended after the 1994 season. b-r.com notes that in his first season in the minors, 1982, he was a teammate of John Elway and in his last, 1994, he was a teammate of Michael Jordan. It appears he stayed in the Chicago area after his playing days ended.
Piranhas! Wait, wrong season...
Gags has been out of the lineup over the last couple games. The Twins had an off day on May 7th, and Gags didn't play in the next two games. His .238/.269.429 line isn't so different from his career line that he needed a few days off to clear his head. Nagging injury, or TK pacing him?
I suspect it was TK pacing him. My recollection is that Kelly was pretty good at starting his bench players against pitchers they could hit and sitting his regulars against pitchers they couldn't hit. My guess is that, for whatever reason, he thought Newman would have a better chance of hitting Rasmussen than Gagne would. And from the results, it looks like he was correct.
From what I remember from my Strat-O-Matic days, Pasqua was a prime platoon player
Interesting that Reardon didn't start the 9th inning of a 2-0 game when the starting pitcher was taken out in the sixth. You'd never see that nowadays. I'm wondering if Reardon had been used a lot prior to this game.
He had pitched an inning in each of the prior two games.
Not only that, but Reardon faced nine batters in his inning of work the day before this game. In the game previous to that he faced five batters. So TK was probably trying to limit his workload. If Berenguer hadn't given up a lead-off double in the ninth, I wonder if TK would've even brought Reardon in to close it out.
Well, he had to be warming up to be brought in after 1 batter. I'm guessing he wasn't going to let Berenguer face the tying run in the ninth and was just trying to get as many outs as possible out of Berenguer.