MINNESOTA 14, OAKLAND 4 IN OAKLAND (10 INNINGS)

Date:  Saturday, June 21.

Batting stars:  Rod Carew was 3-for-6 with three runs.  Harmon Killebrew was 2-for-4 with a home run (his seventeenth) and two walks, scoring three times and driving in four.  Johnny Roseboro was 2-for-4 with a walk.  Leo Cardenas was 2-for-5.  Ted Uhlaender was 2-for-6 with a double and three runs.

Pitching stars:  Jim Perry pitched 5.1 innings, giving up two runs on eight hits and two walks and striking out three.  Ron Perranoski pitched 2.2 innings, giving up one run on one hit and one walk and striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Danny Cater was 3-for-5 with a home run, his fourth.  Ted Kubiak was 2-for-5 with a stolen base.  Ex-Twin Jim Roland struck out three in 2.2 scoreless innings, giving up two walks.

The game:  The Athletics opened the scoring in the second with two singles and a Larry Haney sacrifice fly.  It went to 2-0 in the third when Kubiak singled, stole second, and scored on a Sal Bando single.

The Twins got on the board in the fourth when Uhlaender led off the inning with a double and scored on Killebrew's single.  The Twins put men on first and third with one out in the fifth, but a foul out and a fly ball kept them off the board.  The Twins did take the lead in the sixth.  Carew led off the inning with a single and Killebrew walked, the next two men went out, but Graig Nettles and Cardenas each came through with an RBI single to make it 3-2 Minnesota.

Oakland loaded the bases with one out in the sixth but did not score.  In the eighth, however, Cater led off with a home run to tie it 3-3.

The Twins exploded in the tenth, sending sixteen men to the plate and scoring eleven runs.  Killebrew hit a three-run homer to make it 6-3 Twins.  Far from killing the rally, it ignited it.  They did not get another extra-base hit, but they had five singles and four walks.  Oakland made three errors in the inning, and the Twins also had a stolen base.  It took a line drive double play to end the inning.  The Athletics did get on back in the bottom of the tenth.

WP:  Joe Grzenda (2-1).  LP:  Paul Lindblad (4-1).  S:  None.

Notes:  Carew raised his average to .370.

Perranoski's ERA was now 1.57.

Perranoski, who had pitched 3.1 innings in the previous day's game, pitched 2.2 innings in this game.

Catfish Hunter started the game for Oakland.  He pitched six innings, giving up three runs on six hits and two walks and striking out four.

I'm sure it's not a record, but eleven runs in an extra inning is a lot.

Paul Lindblad started the tenth inning and gave up singles to Uhlaender and Carew.  Lew Krausse then came in and gave up the three-run homer to Killebrew.  He stayed in and walked Tony Oliva, gave up a single to Cesar Tovar, walked Frank Quilici, and gave up a single to Cardenas.  Marcel Lachemann then came in for the duration, giving up four unearned runs on three hits and two walks.

Catfish Hunter had not yet become a superstar, but he was a good pitcher.  He had made the all-star team in 1966 and 1967.  He was regularly making thirty-five starts a year and pitching around two hundred fifty innings with about ten complete games.  He was posting ERAs under 3.50 and WHIPs under 1.20. He was not yet posting good won-lost records--his lifetime W-L record through 1969 was 55-64.  That would come, however.  He would go 18-14 in 1970 and then go 111-49 from 1971-1975.  He led the league in winning percentage in 1972-1973 and in wins in 1974-1975.  For his career he made eight all-star teams and won one Cy Young award, finishing in the top four three other times.  For his career he was 224-166, 3.26, 1.13 WHIP.  He pitched in 500 games, 476 of them starts, over fifteen seasons.  He passed away on September 9, 1999.

Record:  The Twins were 35-28, tied for first in the American League West with Oakland, although they trailed in winning percentage, .557 to .556.