TORONTO 7, MINNESOTA 0 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Wednesday, May 13.
Batting stars: Roy Smalley was 2-for-4. Mark Salas was 1-for-1 as a pinch-hitter.
Pitching star: Joe Klink struck out six in 6.2 innings of relief, giving up one run on five hits and two walks.
Opposition stars: Jim Clancy pitched 7.1 scoreless innings, giving up just three hits, all singles, and a walk with five strikeouts. Kelly Gruber was 3-for-4 with a double and a stolen bases, scoring twice and driving in one. George Bell was 2-for-4 with a home run (his ninth) and two RBIs.
The game: The Blue Jays scored all of their runs in the first three innings. Bell singled in a run in the first, Fred McGriff homered in a two-run second, and Bell homered in a four-run third. The Twins' only threat came in the eighth, when a single, a walk, and a single loaded the bases with one out. Tom Henke then came in to replace Clancy, Steve Lombardozzi flied out to short center field, and Randy Bush struck out to end the inning.
Of note: Kirby Puckett was 0-for-3 with a walk, dropping his average to .321...Tim Laudner was 0-for-3, dropping his average to .065...Twins starter Mark Portugal lasted only 2.1 innings, allowing six runs on seven hits and a walk with one strikeout.
Record: The Twins were 17-16, in fourth place, 1.5 games behind Kansas City and Seattle.
Notes: Bush was in right field for this one, with Brunansky in left and Dan Gladden on the bench...At this point, Klink's ERA was 3.18 in 17 innings, and if not for one rough outing in April it would've been 1.80. Given how desperate the Twins were for fourth and fifth starters, it's a little surprising that they didn't give him a shot at it. Not that I think he'd have gotten the job done, but when you look at some of the other guys they gave starts to, it's hard to think he'd have done much worse.
Player profile: It's kind of amazing to me how many guys who were considered pretty good ballplayers at the time have been almost entirely forgotten now. Kelly Gruber is another one of those. He was drafted by Cleveland with the tenth pick of the 1980 draft. He had a solid season in AA in 1983 as a twenty-one-year-old, but the Indians decided to trade for Brook Jacoby and left Gruber unprotected. The Blue Jays took him in the Rule 5 draft and worked something out so he could stay in the minors for most of 1984 and 1985, then brought him up to stay in 1986. He shared third base with Garth Iorg and Rance Mullinkis in 1987, although Gruber got more playing time there than either of them. He became the regular in 1988 and rewarded the Blue Jays with four solid seasons, batting .274 with 85 homers over that span. He made two all-start teams, one a gold glove, and also won a silver slugger. His best season was 1990, when he hit .274/.330/.512 with 31 homers and finished fourth in MVP voting. He slumped in 1992, was traded to California, played the 1993 season there, and was released in September. He tried to come back in 1997, playing in 38 games in AAA for Baltimore, but while he didn't embarrass himself he wasn't particularly impressive, either. At last report, Kelly Gruber was living in Austin, Texas (he's a native Texan) and made personal appearances and put on instructional camps.
Gruber's production fell off pretty hard right as the Blue Jays were hitting their peak. For three seasons, from '88-'90, he averaged 4.8 rWAR a year. In '91 he fell to less than half that, 1.9 rWAR, and in '92 he was almost exactly replacement-level. The 14.8 rWAR he accumulated from '88 through '90 represents 91% of his career production. His last good season came when he was 29, and he was out of the game two years later. That had to be difficult for him.
His similar batters list has some interesting names, some with similar abbreviated periods of excellence: Randy "Handsom Ransom" Jackson's at the top, followed by guys like Fernando Tatís, Joe Crede, Jim Morrison, Chris "Spuds" Sabo, Eric Soderholm, Bill Hall, and Jim Presley.
Groundskeeper Joe
No Twins reliever has gone 6 2/3 innings or more since this game. There have been 4 that have done 6 1/3 innings. The last was Todd Ritchie in 1997. Andrew Albers did 6 innings in a doubleheader against Houston on Aug. 11, but that was the first 6-inning relief outing for a Twins pitcher since Liam Hendriks in 2013. The longest relief outing in Twins history was 10 1/3 innings by Ray Corbin in 1975. He relieved in the first inning and finished the game and got the win. This came 4 days after he threw 6 1/3 innings in a relief outing, so he essentially pitched 10 1/3 innings on short (3 days) rest.
Ray Corbin. Some year I'm going to have to do a rewind on one of those '70s Twins teams. Maybe the 1977 team, with Rod Carew going for .400.
I was never a Ray Corbin fan.
1977 had big potential. If only we'd had an infield besides Rod, and a relief corps that could hold a lead (ie: if they could have held onto "Soupy")
On the subject of "if only...," imagine Graig Nettles at the hot corner in '77 instead of Mike Cubbage. Doesn't solve Bob Randall's putrid 61 OPS+ at second, but that's still a pretty sizable upgrade.
Tom Johnson had a pretty good 1977 season. He didn't have much help, though, and it looks like Mauch burned him out that year, because he was never any good again.
There was so much hope in those late 1970s years with Mauch at the helm.
Look at the 1976 squad. Starters included Butch Wynegar (20), Roy Smalley (23), Cubbage (25), budding superstar Lyman Bostock (25), Disco Danny Ford (24), Craig Kusick (27), Larry Hisle (29) and Sir Rodney at only 30. The rotation was headlined by Dave Goltz (27) and Bill Singer (32), but also included Pete Redfern (21), Jim Hughes (24) and Eddie Bane (24). (Bert, only 25, was traded with Danny Thompson for Cubbage, Smalley, Singer, Jim Gideon and cash moneys).
That's a lot of youth.
Damn Calvin.