KANSAS CITY 4, MINNESOTA 3 IN KANSAS CITY (17 INNINGS)

Batting stars:  Rod Carew was 3-for-7 with a double and a stolen base, his second.  Ted Uhlaender was 2-for-7 with a walk.

Pitching stars:  Jim Kaat pitched eleven innings, giving up three runs (two earned) on eight hits and five walks and striking out four.  Ron Perranoski pitched 2.1 perfect innings, striking out two.  Joe Grzenda struck out two in two shutout innings, giving up two hits.

Opposition stars:  Joe Foy was 2-for-5 with two walks and a stolen base.  Chuck Harrison was 0-for-7.  Bill Butler struck out six in five shutout innings of relief, giving up one hit and one walk.  Moe Drabowsky pitched 4.1 scoreless innings of relief, giving up three hits and a walk and striking out one.

The game:  There was no score until the third, when George Mitterwald walked and Uhlaender and Carew followed with singles to make it 1-0.  With two out, an error charged to Royals shortstop Jackie Hernandez made it 2-0.  Kansas City tied it in the fourth.  Consecutive singles by Ed Kirkpatrick, Foy, and Harrison brought home the first run and a Jim Campanis sacrifice fly tied it.

The Twins took the lead in the fifth.  Carew doubled, went to third on a sacrifice fly, and scored on a straight steal of home.  It looked like the 3-2 lead might hold up, but in the bottom of the eighth Jerry Adair got to second on a single-plus-error and scored on Foy's single.

The game nearly ended in the twelfth, but a double play allowed the Twins to get out of the inning unscathed despite walking four batters (one intentional) in the inning.  Kaat allowed the first walk, then came out of the game.  Dave Boswell got a double play but went on to walk three more batters in the inning.  Perranoski came on to get the last out.

The game finally ended in the seventeenth.  With Bob Miller pitching, Hernandez drew a one out walk, went to second on a ground out, and scored on a Lou Piniella single to end the game.

WP:  Tom Burgmeier (1-0).  LP:  Miller (0-1).  S:  None.

Notes:  Carew's steal of home came with one out and Harmon Killebrew up to bat.  In the first two games, Billy Martin seems to have been trying to establish that he would have anyone try to steal any base at any time.  Cesar Tovar was caught trying to steal second, as was Mitterwald.  It would be Mitterwald's only stolen base attempt of the season.

Kaat threw eleven innings and faced one batter in the twelfth before coming out of the game.  b-r.com does not give pitch counts, at least not going back to 1969, but I'm pretty sure it was over a hundred.  Not only that, Perranoski pitched 2.1 innings after pitching 5.1 innings the day before.  In both games he did not give up a run.  Martin's reputation for giving pitchers a heavy workload was cemented in Oakland, but it clearly started from his first managerial job.

Graig Nettles was again in left, with Killebrew at third and Rich Reese at first.  In the seventh, with the Twins leading 3-2, Frank Quilici entered the game at third base for defensive purposes.  Killebrew moved to first, with Reese coming out of the game.  In both of the first two games, Cesar Tovar came in to replace Nettles, yesterday as a pinch-hitter and today as a pinch-runner.  In both cases, he remained in the game to play left field.

Nettles was batting .400 (2-for-5).  Carew was batting .417 (5-for-12).  Killebrew, on the other hand, was batting .091 (1-for-11).

Roger Nelson was the Kansas City starter.  He pitched five innings, giving up three runs (two earned) on four hits and five walks and striking out four.

The Royals used one former Twin (Hernandez) and two future Twins (Butler and Burgmeier).

The Twins had now played two games and twenty-nine innings against an expansion team and had nothing to show for it.  I don't know what the expectations were for the 1969 Twins (they had nearly made the World Series in 1967, but had finished seventh in 1968), but I have to think the fans were not terribly pleased.

Record:  The Twins were 0-2, in sixth and last place in the AL West, two games behind Kansas City.