ST. LOUIS 3, MINNESOTA 1 IN ST. LOUIS
Date: Tuesday, October 20.
Batting stars: Tim Laudner was 2-for-3 with a double. Kirby Puckett was 1-for-3 with a triple and a walk. Tom Brunansky was 1-for-4 with an RBI.
Pitching stars: Les Straker pitched six shutout innings, giving up four hits and two walks with four strikeouts. Dan Schatzeder pitched 1.2 scoreless innings, giving up one hit while striking out one.
Opposition stars: John Tudor struck out seven in seven innings, giving up one run on four hits and two walks. Vince Coleman was 1-for-4 with a double and two stolen bases, scoring once and driving in two. Ozzie Smith was 2-for-4 with an RBI.
The game: It was quite a pitchers' duel. Each team had only one man get as far as third base in the first five innings. The Twins broke through in the sixth. With one out, Greg Gagne and Puckett drew consecutive walks. Gary Gaetti fouled out, but Brunansky singled to give the Twins a 1-0 lead. Straker pitched a scoreless sixth, but with two out and none on in the seventh he was pulled for pinch-hitter Gene Larkin, who made the third out. Juan Berenguer came in to start the bottom of the seventh. He gave up consecutive singles to Jose Oquendo and Tony Pena. A bunt moved them to second and third with one out and Coleman doubled both runners home to give the Cardinals a 2-1 lead. Coleman then stole third and scored on a Smith single. Schatzeder came in and retired the side on a pair of ground outs, but the damage had been done. Puckett got a two-out triple in the eighth, but that was the only baserunner the Twins had the rest of the game.
Notes: As far as I can tell, Straker had thrown around ninety pitches through six innings. It was at least a questionable decision to pinch-hit for him at that point, especially in a situation where the Twins were unlikely to score. There were reasons to do it--I'm not saying it was a blatantly wrong decision--but you could certainly make an argument for allowing him to start the seventh...There was, of course, no DH in this game. Straker came up to bat twice and struck out both times. Two of the Twins' part-time DHs, Larkin and Randy Bush, were used as pinch-hitters. Neither got a hit..John Tudor had made three starts in April, then was out with an injury until August 1. That August first game, in which he faced the Pirates in St. Louis, was one of the handful of major league games your correspondent has attended in person.
Record: The Twins led the best-of-seven series two games to one. As I recall, Tom Kelly had not announced whether he would bring Frank Viola back on short rest or use Joe Niekro as a fourth starter. Which would he choose? We'll see tomorrow.
Toward the end of his post-Game Two interview, Mike Smithson commented that he thought Les Straker would be over his jitters from the ALCS. With a 2-0 lead in the Series and only two starters he had full confidence in, I suppose TK figured this was the best time to send a rookie to the mound. When he took the mound, Straker became the first Venezuelan to pitch in the World Series.
I was reading Scot's post on this game; he included some commentary from TK & Straker regarding Straker being pulled after six solid innings:
Sure enough, if you look at his pitching splits, Straker did have a marked (and not entirely unsurprising) downturn after the sixth:
If I knew my rookie starter allowed a 1.140 OPS in the 7th and I had Juan Berenguer ready to go in the bullpen (even after a poor Game Two appearance), I would've been awfully tempted to make the same call TK did.
Pinch-hitting in that situation would have a limited impact because there were already two outs. It appears Straker was already most of the way through the order the third time and was scheduled to face the 7-8-9 batters. I think I would have left him in and relieved him after he finished the seventh, assuming he faced the minimum, or pulled him if Herzog pinch-hit for Tudor.
That's a good point, which I hadn't accounted for when I was thinking about TK's justification and the particular frustration Straker was expressing. Strange that Straker didn't mention that he would be facing the 7-8-9 guys (although maybe he didn't remember that after the game).
On the other hand, if you pinch-hit for Straker you are giving Berenguer the benefit of starting with a clean inning and removing any possibility Straker gets hurt in that plate appearance, just in case you need him again in the Series. With Baylor and Smalley on the bench, sending Larkin out to pinch hit against Tudor was a fairly small price to pay for possibly extending the inning with a one-run lead. Larkin hit lefties better than he did righties at that point (a trend that held through the rest of his career) and he was redundant as a defensive sub since he'd only played first that season (apart from 4 games in the outfield in Portland) and Bush was available.
Any inning Straker was on the mound was one we were on pins and needles. I think taking what he got was a reasonable move by TK. And Straker never seems to get credit for the outstanding job he did here because it inevitably ended up in a loss. Sure, it was the Viola And Blyleven Show, but this effort was no embarrassment.
I don't think there's a clearcut decision here. I think either way TK went could have been defended, and either way could've been questioned. I don't remember what I thought at the time. Decisions like this are one of the great things about sports in general and baseball in particular. No matter what you do, you'll be second-guessed if it doesn't work.
I still don't think he made the wrong decision, and I don't think I would have thought so if he'd left him out there. Either way, it was the lack of runs that was the problem, not the pitching.
"Lester"
TK must have been born with that style.
I do not recall hearing him call Mientkiewicz "Douglas", but maybe I wasn't paying attention.
I wonder if TK called Knoblauch "Edward."