CHICAGO 5, MINNESOTA 4 IN CHICAGO (11 INNINGS)

Date:  Thursday, July 3.

Batting stars:  Frank Quilici was 2-for-3 with a triple.  Cesar Tovar was 2-for-4 with a double.  Leo Cardenas was 2-for-5 with a triple and two runs.

Pitching stars:  Al Worthington pitched three shutout innings, giving up three hits and two walks and striking out two.  Joe Grzenda pitched a perfect inning and struck out one.

Opposition stars:  Walt Williams was 3-for-4 with a double and a walk.  Rich Morales was 2-for-4 with a walk.  Luis Aparicio was 2-for-5 with a double, a walk, and a stolen base (his fourteenth), scoring twice and driving in two.  Don Pavletich was 2-for-5 with a walk.  Bill Melton was 2-for-6 with a home run, his thirteenth.

The game:  The White Sox scored two in the first inning.  They started with back-to-back doubles by Williams and Aparicio, and Pavletich had a two-out RBI single.  Melton singled and Carlos May walked, loading the bases, but Jim Kaat retired Morales on a ground out to hold the score to two.

Chicago missed a chance to add on in the second, as they put men on first and third with none out and failed to score.  That was not true in the fourth, however, Aparicio had a two-out RBI single and later scored on Gail Hopkins' run-scoring single.  They again left the bases loaded, however, as reliever Jerry Crider retired Melton on a ground out.

The Twins got on the board in the fifth, as Cardenas hit a leadoff triple and scored on Ted Uhlaender's ground out.  The White Sox had two on in the fifth and again in the seventh but could not add to their lead, so the score remained 4-1.

Quilici led off the eighth with a triple and scored on Tovar's single, but Chicago still led 4-2 going to the ninth.  Cardenas singled with one out.  With two down, Uhlaender singled, Quilici singled to make it 4-3, and pinch-hitter Rich Reese singled to tie the score.  The Twins still had men on first and third, but pinch-hitter Graig Nettles struck out and the game went into extra innings.

Each team had chances.  The White Sox had men on first and third but did not score.  The Twins got a single and a walk in the tenth but could do nothing with them.  Finally, Melton led off the eleventh with a walkoff home run.

WP:  Dan Osinski (3-2).  LP:  Ron Perranoski (4-4).  S:  None.

Notes:  Tovar was at third base, one of only fourteen starts he made at third in 1969.  Bob Allison started in left again, the first time he had started consecutive games since June 13-14.  George Mitterwald was again behind the plate, the first time he had started consecutive games since June 22-23.

The Twins used five pinch-hitters:  Reese, Nettles, Charlie Manuel, Rick Renick, and Quilici.  Nobody even has bench players today.

Kaat, who had thrown a complete game in his last start, went just 3.2 innings, allowing four runs on seven hits and two walks and striking out two.  Kaat seems to have really been up-and-down in 1969--he had ten complete games, but he also had ten starts in which he failed to last five innings.  He wasn't a big strikeout pitcher (5.2 per nine innings in 1969), which may account for it.

The White Sox starter was Gary Peters.  He pitched 8.2 innings, allowing four runs on eight hits and two walks and striking out seven.

Rod Carew went 0-for-4.  He was in a mini-slump, going 4-for-23.  His average fell from .382 to .362.

Tony Oliva was 1-for-4 and was batting .313.  Kaat had his ERA go up to 2.84.

Perranoski was starting his third inning of work when he gave up the walkoff homer to Melton.  His ERA went up to 2.16.

Dan Osinski was in the last full year of his career.  He started in the Cleveland organization at age eighteen in 1952 and stayed there through 1956, only getting as high as AA for five games.  The Indians let him go and he was out of baseball for two years, coming back with the White Sox in 1959.  He was traded to Kansas City after the 1961 season and finally made his major league debut there in 1962 at age twenty-eight.  He pitched in only four games for them, then was dealt to the Angels.  Used mostly in relief, he gave the Angels three solid seasons, then was traded to Milwaukee.  He gave the Braves a solid season, too, but then was traded to Boston.  He was there for two years and continued to pitch well--his 1967 season was 3-1, 2.54, 1.18 WHIP in 34 games (63.2 innings).  Despite that, he was released by the Red Sox late in spring training and went unsigned for almost a month, finally signing with the White Sox in late April.  They kept him in AAA all of 1968 even though he went 8-2, 2.39, 1.07 WHIP.  Back in the majors in 1969, he again pitched well out of the bullpen for Chicago.  After the season, however, they sold him to Houston.  He made only three appearances for them and was sent to AAA, where he finished the season and could not get a call-up even though he posted an ERA of 2.42 in 67 innings.  Then he was done, moving on to a successful career in the banking industry.  His career numbers are 29-28, 18 saves, 3.34, 1.39 WHIP.  He gave teams good value, but never seemed to be appreciated by the team that had him.  His b-r.com biography indicates that he was popular and somewhat of a wit--maybe teams thought he didn't take the game seriously enough, I don't know.  He came to the big leagues late, so maybe that worked against him, too.  And of course, in the context of the 1960s his numbers are perhaps not as good as they look to us today.  Still, he seemed able to get major league batters out pretty well, and that's always something teams need.

Record:  The Twins were 43-34, in second place in the American League West, a game behind Oakland.