BOSTON 5, MINNESOTA 3 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Monday, June 9.

Batting stars:  Tony Oliva was 2-for-4 with a walk and a stolen base, his fourth.  Rich Reese was 2-for-5 with a triple and two RBIs.

Pitching stars:  Tom Hall retired all five batters he faced, striking out four.  Joe Grzenda pitched two shutout innings, giving up two hits and striking out one.  Bob Miller pitched two shutout innings, striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Dick Schofield was 2-for-5.  Carl Yastrzemski was 1-for-3 with a two-run homer (his fourteenth) and a walk.  Rico Petrocelli was 1-for-4 with a home run, his twentieth.  Ray Jarvis pitched 6.2 innings, giving up three runs (two earned) on six hits and five walks and striking out three.  Vicente Romo struck out three in 2.1 scoreless innings, giving up two walks.

The game:  Yastrzemski  hit a two-run homer in the first inning, giving the Red Sox a 2-0 lead.  The Twins got one of them back in the second, as Reese tripled and later scored on an error.

Boston increased its lead in the fourth.  Petrocelli led off the inning with a home run.  Joe Lahoud walked and George Scott singled, putting men on first and third.  A wild pitch brought Lahoud home and a Russ Gibson single scored Scott, making the score 5-1.

The Twins missed a chance to get back into it in the sixth, as Graig Nettles hit a two-out triple and Leo Cardenas walked.  Johnny Roseboro grounded out to end the inning.  They did get a couple in the seventh, but again missed a chance for more.  With two out and none on, singles by Rod Carew and Oliva and a walk to Harmon Killebrew loaded the bases.  Reese delivered a two-run single to cut the margin to 5-3.  Nettles walked, loading the bases again, but Cardenas hit into a forceout to end the inning.

In the ninth, Oliva and Killebrew drew one-out walks, putting the tying run on base.  Reese and Nettles struck out to end the game.

WP:  Jarvis(3-1).  LP:  Dick Woodson (3-2).  S:  Romo (10).

Notes:  Carew was back in the lineup and went 1-for-3 with a walk, raising his average to .390.  He came out of the game in the eighth as part of a double switch, with Cesar Tovar going to second.

Reese was in the starting lineup for the first time since May 14.  Oddly, he played left field.  He did play the outfield occasionally, logging seventy-four games there in his career.  This was his first appearance there in 1969.  Nettles played third and Killebrew was at first.  Earlier in the season, of course, it had been Nettles in left, Killebrew at third, and Reese at first.

Oliva raised his average to .308.  Roseboro was 0-for-3 with a walk and was batting .301.

Dick Woodson started for the Twins but pitched just three innings, allowing all five runs on four hits and three walks.  He struck out three.  Jerry Crider pitched a third of an inning without giving up a run and remained unscored upon in five major league innings.  Miller lowered his ERA to 1.69.

This was one of twelve starts of Ray Jarvis' career.  It was his rookie season.  He'd been drafted by the Red Sox in 1985 and was still in Class A at the start of 1968, but he was promoted to AAA midway through that season and at the start of the 1969 campaign, at the age of twenty-two, he was in the majors.  Understandably, he wasn't ready, going 5-6, 4.75 in 100.1 innings (29 games, 12 starts).  He was much better as a starter than as a reliever, though, and looked like he could be a good man to have in the bullpen.  He didn't do badly there, posting an ERA of 2.92. but was sent back to AAA in late May anyway.  That was the last success he would have in baseball.  He pitched poorly in AAA in 1970, was traded to the Angels after that season, and pitched poorly in AAA in 1971 as well.  Then he was done, at age twenty-five.  He had shoulder and arm injuries, which he believes were not treated properly by the teams he was with, and which probably contributed to his poor pitching.  He went into sales, did some college coaching, then joined the campus security department of Providence College.  He was still working there at last report, but he's seventy-two now, so he may well be retired.

Record:  The Twins were 29-23, in first place in the American League West, 2.5 games ahead of Oakland.  They were not playing well, however, going just 10-14 since May 10.