MINNESOTA 7, DETROIT 1 IN DETROIT
Date: Monday, August 4.
Batting star: Tony Oliva was 3-for-4 with two RBIs.
Pitching stars: Bob Miller pitched 7.1 innings, giving up one run on four hits and a walk and striking out two. Ron Perranoski pitched 1.2 scoreless innings, giving up a walk.
Opposition stars: Don Wert was 2-for-3. Daryl Patterson struck out two in a perfect inning.
The game: The Twins scored five in the first inning and the game was pretty much over right there. Cesar Tovar walked, Rod Carew singled, and Harmon Killebrew walked, loading the bases. Oliva hit an RBI ground out and Bob Allison struck out, so it looked like Tigers starter Mike Kilkenny might get out of the inning. Leo Cardenas walked, re-loading the bases. Rick Renick then followed with a two-run double and Tom Tischinski came through with a two-run single, making the score 5-0.
The Tigers threatened in the bottom of the first, as Tom Tresh hit a one-out double and Al Kaline walked, but Norm Cash hit into a double play. They did got on the board in the third when Wert singled, went to second on a ground out, and scored on a Mickey Stanley double, making the score 5-1. The Twins got the run back in the fifth when Carew walked, went to second on a wild pitch, and scored on Killebrew's single, so the score was 6-1.
The Twins added one last run in the seventh when Tovar singled, stole second, and scored on Oliva's single. Detroit had only one hit after the third inning.
WP: Miller (4-4). LP: Kilkenny (1-2). S: Perranoski (21).
Notes: Tischinski was again behind the plate--one assumes Johnny Roseboro had a minor injury. Renick was again at third, with Killebrew at first and Rich Reese on the bench.
Miller would make one more start, then miss a month due to injury. He was in the bullpen when he came back, although he did make two starts at the end of the season.
Carew was 1-for-4 with a walk and was batting .366. Oliva raised his average to .332. Reese came into the game to pinch-hit for Allison in the fifth and went 0-for-2, making his average .318. Reese first went to left, then moved to first when Ted Uhlaender came in for defense in the seventh, with Killebrew coming out of the game.
I had completely forgotten that Tom Tresh played for the Tigers. He didn't play for them terribly long--he was traded there in mid-June of 1969 and stayed through the end of the season, which turned out to be his last. The rest of his career, of course, was with the Yankees. He made his major league debut as a September call-up in 1961 and stayed until his trade to Detroit. He came up as a shortstop and played there in 1962, but then Tony Kubek got came back from the military and he moved to the outfield. He played mostly left, but also played a good deal of center whenever Mickey Mantle missed time with injuries. He was a very good batter through 1966, three times posting an OPS of .800 or better and around. 750 the other two times. As we often say, those numbers are even better than they sound when you adjust for the low offense of the 1960s. He was Rookie of the Year in 1962, made the all-star team in both 1962 and 1963, and won a Gold Glove in 1965. After that, even though he was only twenty-eight in 1967, he pretty much fell off a cliff. His OPS was .678 in 1967 and .612 in 1968. It was .534 in 1969 at the time of his trade to the Tigers. Detroit moved him back to shortstop and he bounced back some the rest of the season, but it wasn't enough. He was released before the 1970 season, ending his playing career. Tom Tresh passed away from a heart attack on October 14, 2008.
Record: The Twins were 67-41, in first place in the American League West, 3.5 games ahead of Oakland.