TEXAS 6, MINNESOTA 3 AT TEXAS
Date: Sunday, June 28.
Batting stars: Kent Hrbek was 1-for-4 with a home run, his twentieth. Randy Bush was 1-for-4 with a home run, his fifth. Kirby Puckett was 2-for-4 with a double.
Pitching stars: None.
Opposition stars: Scott Fletcher was 2-for-2 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch, scoring twice. Oddibe McDowell was 1-for-3 with a two-run homer, his eighth. Jose Guzman pitched 7.1 innings, giving up three runs on seven hits and a walk with four strikeouts.
The game: The Twins led 2-0, but Texas scored four in the fourth, capped by McDowell's two-run homer. Bush homered in the sixth to make it 4-3, but a two-run Texas eighth put the game out of reach.
Of note: Puckett raised his average to .346...Gene Larkin was 1-for-4, making his average an even .300...Mike Smithson pitched seven innings but allowed six runs on six hits and three walks with five strikeouts.
Record: The Twins lost their fourth straight, getting swept by Texas. Their record was 42-33, still good for first place by a game over Oakland.
Notes: Al Newman played second base in place of Steve Lombardozzi and batted first, going 0-for-4 and dropping his average to .192...Bush batted second and was in right field, with Tom Brunansky in left and Dan Gladden out of the lineup...Larkin was the DH, with Roy Smalley at third base and Gary Gaetti out of the lineup.
Player profile: Right-hander Jose Guzman signed with Texas as a free agent in 1981. He reached the majors as a September call-up in 1985 and pitched very well in five starts. He struggled in his first couple of years in the majors but had a fine 1988, going just 11-13 but posting a 3.70 ERA and a 1.27 WHIP and pitching just over two hundred innings for the second straight year. Then, however, he suffered a serious shoulder injury and missed the next two seasons. He came back in 1991 to have the best season of his career, going 13-7, 3.08 in 25 starts and winning Comeback Player of the Year. He continued to be a good pitcher in 1992 with the Rangers and in 1993 with the Cubs, with whom he signed as a free agent. Then, however, the shoulder problems returned. He made four poor starts for the Cubs in 1994, tried to come back in both 1995 and 1996, and tried again in 2001-02, pitching for independent Fort Worth. He worked as a Spanish language broadcaster for the Rangers from 2004-09. He operates the Guzman23 Foundation, whose goal is "to provide assistance to families to enable them to care for their loved ones in the own homes as long as possible. The foundation is also committed to help fund research and development to help find a cure and to improve Alzheimer`s facilities,making them a place where families know their loved ones will be cared for with compassion."