MINNESOTA 6, BOSTON 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Tuesday, June 10.

Batting stars:  Leo Cardenas was 2-for-3.  Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-2 with a triple, two walks, a stolen base, two runs, and two RBIs.

Pitching star:  Jim Kaat pitched a complete game, giving up two runs on seven hits and two walks and striking out two.

Opposition stars:  Reggie Smith was 2-for-4.  Carl Yastrzemski was 1-for-4 with a two-run homer, his fifteenth.  Bill Landis retired all seven men he faced, striking out three.

The game:  There were no baserunners until the third, when George Scott drew a leadoff walk and Ray Culp had a one-out bunt single.  A double play ended the threat.  The Twins came through with a five-spot in the bottom of the third.  Cardenas led off with a single and scored on Kaat's one-out double.  Ted Uhlaender singled to bring Kaat home.  Rod Carew singled and Killebrew followed with a two-run triple.  He scored on Rich Reese's single to make it 5-0.

The Red Sox got on the board in the sixth, when Jerry Moses led off with a single and Yastrzemski hit a two-out two-run homer.  The Twins got one of the runs back in the bottom of the sixth when Killebrew singled, stole second, and scored on a Cardenas single, making the score 6-2.

That's where it stayed.  The only other Boston threat came in the eighth, when Dick Schofield led off with a double.  Kaat came back to strike out Dalton Jones and Yastrzemski and got Smith on a grounder.

WP:  Kaat (6-4).  LP:  Culp (9-3).  S:  None.

Notes:  Reese was again in left, with Nettles at third and Killebrew at first.  Billy Martin made a defensive change, putting Frank Quilici at third in place of Nettles, in the seventh.  In the eighth, Cesar Tovar pinch-ran for Killebrew and went to left field, with Reese going to first.  I find it hard to believe that Quilici was a substantially better third baseman than Nettles, but this was early in Nettles' career, so I suppose it could be that he was at that time.

This was Kaat's fifth complete game of the season.  He would end the year with ten.  That was actually a low total for Kaat--he had eight seasons in which he had more than that.  He led the league once, in 1966, when he had nineteen complete games.

Killebrew had twenty-four triples and nineteen stolen bases in his career.  I don't know how many times he had both in the same game, but it was clearly a rare thing.  His career high in triples was seven, in 1961.  His career high in stolen bases was eight, in 1969.

Boston starter Ray Culp lasted just 2.2 innings, allowing five runs on six hits.  He walked none and struck out none.  He was a fine pitcher, though.  He was up and down early in his career, having fine seasons in 1963 and 1965 but poor ones in 1964 and 1966.  He was with Philadelphia then, but moved to the Cubs in 1967 and Boston in 1968.  That was where he had his best seasons, going 64-44, 3.34 from 1968-1971.  He pitched over two hundred innings each season and pitched a total of 493.2 innings in just 1970-1971.  The workload may have taken a toll, because he did not have a good year after 1971 and was out of baseball by 1973.  For his career he was 122-101, 3.58, 1.28 WHIP in 322 games, 268 of them starts.  He made two all-star teams (1963 and 1969) and finished third in Rookie of the Year voting in 1963 (behind Pete Rose and Ron Hunt).  Not a superstar, but a very respectable career.

Record:  The Twins were 30-23, in first place in the American League West, 2.5 games behind Oakland.