KANSAS CITY 10, MINNESOTA 1 IN KANSAS CITY
Date: Sunday, October 4.
Batting stars: Greg Gagne was 2-for-2. Kirby Puckett was 2-for-4.
Pitching stars: George Frazier pitched a perfect inning with one strikeout. Keith Atherton pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit and striking out one. Jeff Reardon pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a walk.
Opposition stars: Mark Gubicza pitched a complete game, giving up one run on eight hits and no walks with four strikeouts. Frank White was 2-for-3 with a home run (his seventeenth), scoring twice and driving in two. Kevin Seitzer was 2-for-5 with a triple, scoring twice and driving in two.
The game: The Twins basically treated this as a spring training game, using sixteen position players and seven pitchers. No pitcher went more than 1.2 innings, which was still too much for starter Joe Niekro. He got the Royals out in order in the first, but in the second he faced seven batters and retired one of them, giving up three hits and three walks. The score was 3-0 Kansas City and the bases were loaded when he left the game. Dan Schatzeder came in and gave up a single, a triple, and a single to the first three batters he faced, making the score 8-0, and it was never a game after that. The Twins' lone run came in the ninth on two singles and a wild pitch.
Notes: Puckett was used in the leadoff spot in this game, with Dan Gladden batting third...Puckett raised his average to .332, which was good for fourth in the American League. The league leader was Wade Boggs at .363...Don Baylor was used as a pinch-runner for Puckett in the ninth inning and scored the Twins' only run. People tend to forget that Baylor was a speedy guy early in his career, stealing 285 bases with a career high of 52 in 1976. One has to think, however, that it had been a long time since he had been used as a pinch-runner...Jim Eisenreich got his only stolen base of the season in this game, stealing third base in the eight-run second inning...Willie Wilson stole his fifty-ninth base of the season, leaving him one behind league leader Harold Reynolds.
Record: The Twins ended the season on a five-game losing streak, a cause of much concern at the time. Their record was 85-77, in first place by two games over Kansas City. In the East, Detroit defeated Toronto 1-0 behind a complete game shutout by Frank Tanana to clinch the division. Larry Herndon's second-inning homer was the only run of the game. That set up the American League Championship Series between Minnesota and Detroit, which would start Wednesday, October 7 in Minnesota.
Don Baylor pinch-ran 13 times in his career. 11 of those times came by 1976 when he was still very fast. The last two times? Both in 1987. On August 29th for the Red Sox, then this game for the Twins.
According to b-ref, the last time Baylor had been used as a pinch runner before these two appearances in the '87 season came on June 9th, 1975, when he replaced Orioles DH Tommy Davis in the bottom of the 12th against the Athletics. That was actually the third in a string of three straight pinch-running appearances by Baylor, who must've been nursing an injury that kept him out of the lineup but left him available to run. So, three in a row, and then no appearances for a dozen seasons.
He also pinch-ran October 2, 1976.
That's interesting, because when you click on "as PR" in Baylor's career splits, 1976 isn't listed. And yet, he recorded 2 PA in the game you reference after coming in as a pinch runner. It can't be because nothing happened in that PR appearance – Baylor scored from second on a single to center by Ken McMullen.
I'm guessing under splits, he's not listed as pinch runner because he wound up playing the field that game. I ran a play index for PR appearances
The August 29 game was not a token appearance or anything. Boston led Cleveland 1-0 in the seventh. With men on first and second and one out, Baylor came in to run for the runner on first, which was DH Sam Horn. I could believe that, even at that point in his career, Baylor was faster than Sam Horn.
Wasn't one of Baylor's nicknames "Sneak Thief"?
I remember the five-game losing streak like it was yesterday. I remember my cousin saying it proved the Twins would falter in the playoffs. I asked if he could point to a time when the Twins went on a five-game losing streak, and then never won another game. He shook his head at me like I didn't understand.
I also remember loving watching this game, as weird as it was. It was just a revolving door showcase.