MINNESOTA 5, SEATTLE 2 IN MINNESOTA (GAME 1 OF DOUBLEHEADER)
Date: Sunday, July 13.
Batting stars: Leo Cardenas was 2-for-3 with a double and a walk. Frank Quilici was 2-for-4 with a home run. Cesar Tovar was 2-for-5 with a home run, his second. Rich Reese was 2-for-5.
Pitching star: Jim Kaat threw a complete game, giving up two runs on nine hits and no walks and striking out two.
Opposition stars: Jerry McNertney was 2-for-4 with a home run, his seventh. Diego Segui struck out four in three innings, giving up one run on two hits and two walks. Dick Baney pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two hits.
The game: Tovar led off the first with a single, Harmon Killebrew had a one-out single, and Bob Allison delivered a two-out single to give the Twins a 1-0 lead. It stayed 1-0 until the fourth, when Quilici led off the inning with a home run. The next two batters were retired, but Tovar then homered to make it 3-0. Reese singled, Killebrew walked, and Oliva had a run-scoring single. Killebrew was thrown out trying to go from first to third, but the Twins led 4-0.
The Pilots got on the board in the seventh. Davis and Don Mincher singled to start the inning. A forceout put men on first and third and Ron Clark hit a sacrifice fly to make the score 4-1. Ray Oyler singled, but Jerry McNertney was thrown out trying to go from first to third, ending the inning. The Twins got the run back in the bottom of the seventh. Killebrew walked, pinch-runner Ted Uhlaender stole second, and Quilici came through with an RBI single, putting the Twins up 5-1. McNertney hit a home run in the ninth, but Seattle did not really threaten to get back into the game.
WP: Kaat (9-6). LP: Garry Roggenburk (2-3). S: None.
Notes: Tovar was back in center, with Allison in left. Quilici started at second base. After he came in as a pinch-runner, Uhlaender stayed in to play center, with Tovar moving to second base and Quilici moving to third. Graig Nettles pinch-hit for Allison in the seventh and stayed in to play left.
Oliva went 1-for-4 and was batting .335. Reese raised his average to .332.
Kaat's ERA was now 2.86.
This was Baney's second career game, both against the Twins. He would appear in nine games on the season, four of them against Minnesota.
This was the last season of ex-Twin Garry Roggenburk's career. The Twins had sold him to Boston late in 1966, and he stayed there until late June of 1969, when he was sold to Seattle. This was the last of four starts he made for the Pilots--he pitched four innings and allowed four runs on nine hits and two walks, striking out two. He made three more relief appearances for Seattle, then abruptly retired in late July. He'd had numerous elbow problems ever since his rookie year with the Twins in 1963, and had planned to go into teaching after the 1969 season, so one assumes he simply decided the pain wasn't worth it any more. Oddly, two of the three games in which he pitched in relief were very long games--one was eighteen innings, the other was twenty innings. In both cases, he was the last pitcher used.
Record: The Twins were 52-35, in first place in the American League West, 4.5 games ahead of Oakland. The Twins had won four in a row, nine out of ten, and thirteen out of fifteen.