MINNESOTA 5, BOSTON 4 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Wednesday, September 2.

Batting stars:  Randy Bush was 2-for-3 with a home run (his eighth) and two RBIs.  Kent Hrbek was 2-for-2 with two walks and a run.  Gary Gaetti was 2-for-4 with a double.

Pitching stars:  Les Straker pitched six innings, giving up two runs on four hits and a walk with one strikeout.  Jeff Reardon retired all five men he faced, striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Steve Crawford pitched 5.1 innings of relief, giving up one run on eight hits and two walks with no strikeouts.  Mike Greenwell was 2-for-4 with a home run (his seventeenth) and a double, driving in three.  Marty Barrett was 2-for-3 with a walk and a run.

The game:  Bush homered in the first inning to give the Twins a 1-0 lead.  Three singles and a sacrifice fly-plus-error produced three Twins runs in the second to make it 4-0 and Roy Smalley singled in a run in the fifth to make it 5-0.  Greenwell hit a two-run homer in the sixth and two walks and an RBI double with one out in the eighth made it 5-3 and brought Reardon into the game.  He allowed a sacrifice fly to make it 5-4, but retired all five men he faced to secure the win.

Of note:  Al Newman led off and played shortstop, with Greg Gagne out of the lineup...Dan Gladden was again out of the lineup, with Bush in right field batting second and Tom Brunansky in left...Puckett was 1-for-4 and was batting .329...Don Baylor, who had been acquired for a player to be named later (Enrique Rios) just before the August 31 trade deadline, had still not played in a game for the Twins at this point.

Record:  The Twins were 70-64, in first place.  Oakland lost to the Yankees 5-4 in ten innings, so the Twins lead increased to 1.5 games.

We may or may not get back to player profiles later this week.