MINNESOTA 4, TEXAS 2 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Wednesday, September 23.
Batting stars: Dan Gladden was 2-for-3 with a home run (his eighth), a triple, and a walk, driving in three. Don Baylor was 1-for-1 with an RBI.
Pitching stars: Bert Blyleven pitched 6.2 innings, giving up two runs on four hits and five walks with five strikeouts. Juan Berenguer retired all four batters he faced, striking out one. Jeff Reardon pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.
Opposition stars: Oddibe McDowell was 3-for-4 with two home runs, his thirteenth and fourteenth. Tom O'Malley was 1-for-1 with a double.
The game: Neither team got a hit through the first two innings. That ended with the first batter of the third, when Blyleven left a pitch up to McDowell, who put the Rangers ahead 1-0. There were no more hits in the game until the first batter of the fifth, when Blyleven again left a pitch up to McDowell, who put the Rangers ahead 2-0. The Twins got their first hit in the fifth, a two-out single by Tom Brunansky, and tied the game in the sixth on Gladden's two-run homer. Texas had the bases loaded with two out in the seventh, but Berenguer came in and retired Ruben Sierra on a ground out to end the threat. In the eighth, Roy Smalley delivered a pinch-hit single and scored the go-ahead run on Gladden's triple. Baylor came through with a two-out single later in the inning to make the score 4-2. O'Malley hit a two-out double in the ninth to bring the tying run to bat, but Reardon got Jerry Browne on a fly to center to end the game.
Notes: Kent Hrbek remained out of the lineup, with Randy Bush again playing first base and batting third. Hrbek did come in to play defense in the ninth after Bush had been removed for a pinch-hitter...Kirby Puckett, batting fourth, was 0-for-4, dropping his average to .329...The scoreless inning dropped Reardon's ERA to 4.36, the lowest it had been since he pitched a scoreless inning in his first appearance of the season. It would not go lower, and he would end the season with an ERA of 4.48...McDowell hit fourteen homers in 1987. Six of them came against the Twins...The effects of September roster expansion can be noticed in this game, as the teams combined to use four pinch-hitters and five pinch-runners.
Record: The Twins were 82-70, in first place by five games over Oakland, which lost to Cleveland 8-6.