BOSTON 13, MINNESOTA 5 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Wednesday, June 11.
Batting stars: Rod Carew was 3-for-5 with a double. Leo Cardenas was 2-for-3 with a double and two RBIs. Johnny Roseboro was 2-for-3 with a walk.
Pitching star: Al Worthington pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit and striking out one.
Opposition stars: Joe Lahoud was 3-for-5 with three home runs and four RBIs. Dick Schofield was 3-for-5 with three doubles and a walk, scoring twice. George Scott was 3-for-4 with a walk and two RBIs. Reggie Smith was 3-for-4 with a stolen base (his fourth), scoring twice and driving in two. Sonny Siebert struck out five in five shutout innings of relief, giving up two hits.
The game: The Red Sox opened the scoring in the second, as Rico Petrocelli walked and Lahoud hit a two-run homer. The Twins got a two-out double from Graig Nettles in the bottom of the second, but Roseboro was intentionally walked and Dave Boswell struck out. In the third, two walks and an infield single loaded the bases for Boston with one out, but Petrocelli hit a short fly to center and Lahoud struck out to end the inning.
The Red Sox appeared to break it open in the fourth. With men on first and second and one out Schofield hit an RBI double, Dalton Jones had a two-run single, a two-out passed ball scored a fourth run, and later Petrocelli had an RBI single to make it 7-0. The Twins got back into it with four in the bottom of the fourth. With two out and a man on third, the Twins got four consecutive singles (Cardenas, Roseboro, Rick Renick, and Ted Uhlaender) and a double from Carew to cut the margin to 7-4.
Lahoud hit his second home run in the fifth to make the score 8-4. The Twins got the run back in the bottom of the fifth on a sacrifice fly.
That was as good as it would get for the Twins. Smith had an RBi single and Scott drove in two with a single in the sixth to give Boston an 11-5 lead. Smith hit a sacrifice fly in the seventh and Lahoud hit his third home run in the eighth.
WP: Siebert (5-6). LP: Boswell (7-7). S: None.
Notes: Reese was again in left, with Nettles at third base.
Carew raised his average to .393. Roseboro raised his average to .303. Tony Oliva was 0-for-5 to make his average .300.
Boswell lasted just 3.1 innings, allowing five runs (four earned) on five hits and three walks and striking out two. In his prior two starts, he had thrown seven shutout innings and eight shutout innings. The Twins used seven pitchers, only two of whom went unscored upon. In addition to Worthington, Jerry Crider pitched one-third of an inning without giving up a run. He actually gave up a hit to the only man he faced, but Smith was thrown out at the plate trying to score from second on Petrocelli's single. Crider still had not given up a run in six major league appearances (5.1 innings).
Outfielder Joe Lahoud was in his first full major league season. He would hit only nine home runs in 1969, one-third of them in this game. He was used as a reserve, playing in 101 games but getting just 218 at-bats. He played in parts of eleven seasons, never getting more than 325 at-bats in a season. He batted over .250 just once, when he hit .271 for California in 1974. That was also the only season in which he posted an OPS of over .800, putting up a mark of .825. He played for Boston from 1968-1971, Milwaukee in 1972-1973, California from 1974-1976, Texas for the latter part of 1976, and Kansas City from 1977-1978. His career numbers are .223/.334/.372. He hit sixty-five home runs, with a season high of fourteen in 1971. One assumes he was considered a superior defender, although he played corner outfield almost exclusively. He doesn' t look like he was very good, really, but again, he played in parts of eleven seasons, so somebody must have thought he was doing something well. As he put it during the 1975 season, "It's easy to stay in the majors for seven and a half years when you hit .300, but when you hit .216, like me, it's really an accomplishment."
Record: The Twins were 30-24, in first place in the American League West, 1.5 games ahead of Oakland. They were now 11-16 since May 11.