MINNESOTA 4, SEATTLE 0 IN SEATTLE

Date:  Sunday, July 20.

Batting stars:  George Mitterwald was 2-for-4 with a home run (his fourth) and scored twice.  Cesar Tovar was 1-for-4 with a home run, his third.

Pitching star:  Jim Perry pitched a complete game shutout, giving up nine hits and no walks and striking out three.

Opposition stars:  Ex-Twin Ron Clark was 3-for-4.  Gus Gil was 2-for-4 with a double.  Steve Hovley was 2-for-4.  John Gelnar pitched seven innings, giving up three runs on five hits and no walks and striking out four.

The game:  The Pilots had men on first and second with two out in the second but did not score.  The Twins started the scoring in the third when Mitterwald led off the inning with a home run.  Seattle again put men on first and second in the third and fourth, but again could not score.

The Twins had only three hits through the first seven innings, but broke the game open in the eighth.  Tovar led off with a home run and Mitterwald singled.  That chased Gelnar from the game and brought in Jim Bouton.  A wild pitch and a ground out sent Mitterwald to third.  Perry singled him home, making the score 3-0.  A balk, a ground out, and an error increased the lead to 4-0.  The Pilots got a man to second in the eighth on Gil's one out double but did not otherwise threaten.

WP;  Perry (11-4).  LP:  Gelnar (2-7).  S:  None.

Notes:  Rod Carew was 1-for-4, making his average .364.  Frank Quilici pinch-ran for him in the eighth.  I don't know if this was health-related, if Billy Martin wanted to give him a break, or if Carew needed to get to the airport for the all-star game, which would be played in two days. The normal move would have been to use Quilici to replace Harmon Killebrew at third, but Killebrew remained in the game.  Killebrew, of course, was also on the all-star team in 1969.

Cesar Tovar was again in right field, replacing Tony Oliva.  Mitterwald was behind the plate, replacing Johnny Roseboro.

Rich Reese was 0-for-4 and was batting .328.

Perry had pitched two innings in the completion of the suspended game, so he pitched eleven innings on the day.  He did not walk anyone and only had three strikeouts in this game, so his pitch count may not have been too bad even for pitching eleven innings.  Perry was the winning pitcher in both games, and Gelnar was the losing pitcher in both games.

Gus Gil is on that "all-time short names" list with Joe Foy, Joe Lis, and I assume a lot of others.  Ed Ott still has them all beat, and there's probably someone else whose name is that short or shorter.  Gil was a futility infielder for parts of four major league seasons:  1967 and 1969-1971.  He never had any power, but in his good minor league seasons he hit a fair number of doubles.  His best minor league season was 1964 in AAA San Diego, when he batted .305/.390/.388.  He was actually the starting second baseman coming out of spring training with Cleveland in 1967, but lost the job in early May when he was batting .154.  Even in the 1960s, that wasn't good enough.  He stayed in the majors as a reserve and was frequently used as a defensive replacement, so he must have been considered an excellent defender.  Still, when he was batting .109 at the all-star break he was sent back to AAA, getting a September call-up.  He was traded to Seattle in May of 1968, when they had a AAA team but not yet a major league team, and was at various times the Pilots starting second baseman in 1969.  This was the end of the last of those times:  he was batting .224 with an OPS of .528, and he lost the starting job to John Donaldson.  1969 was his only full season in the majors.  He moved to Milwaukee with the team and was with the Brewers for parts of 1970 and 1971.  He continued to play in the minors through 1976 and actually had a pretty good year for AAA Denver in 1973, batting .303/.381/.406, but by then he was thirty-four.  His career major league numbers are .186/.272/.226 in 468 at-bats.  He managed in the low minors for four seasons:  1979, 1982, and 1990-1991.  Gus Gil passed away in Phoenix on December 8, 2015.

Record:  The Twins were 59-37, in first place in the American League West, four games ahead of Oakland.

MINNESOTA 11, SEATTLE 7 IN SEATTLE (18 INNINGS)

Date:  Saturday, July 19--Sunday, July 20.

Batting stars:  Ted Uhlaender was 4-for-7 with a home run (his fifth), two walks, two runs, and five RBIs.  Rich Reese was 4-for-8 with a double and two walks.  Jerry Crider was 2-for-3 with a two doubles and two runs.  Rod Carew was 2-for-7 with a double and two walks.  Leo Cardenas was 2-for-9 with a home run (his sixth), a walk, and a stolen base (his fourth), scoring twice.

Pitching stars:  Crider pitched 5.1 innings, giving up two runs on nine hits and no walks and striking out one.  Ron Perranoski pitched 4.2 innings, giving up an unearned run on three hits and three walks and striking out two.  Jim Kaat pitched three innings, giving up one run on three hits and a walk.  Jim Perry pitched two perfect innings, striking out two.

Opposition stars:  Steve Hovley was 4-for-10.  Ex-Twin Ron Clark was 3-for-8 with a walk and two RBIs.  Jerry McNertney was 3-for-9 with two doubles.  Jim Pagliaroni was 2-for-4 with a home run (his second) and a walk, scoring twice and driving in two.  Steve Whitaker was 2-for-4.  Gus Gil was 2-for-9.  Bob Locker struck out two in two shutout innings, giving up two hits and a walk.

The game:  The Twins loaded the bases in the first inning with two out, but did not score.  In the second, Cardenas walked, Crider cracked a one-out double, and Uhlaender delivered a two-run single to put Minnesota up 2-0.  In the fourth, those same people came through.  Cardenas homered, Crider doubled again, and Uhlaender hit a two-run homer to make the score 5-0.

The Twins added another run in the sixth.  Cesar Tovar walked, stole second, went to third on a pickoff error, and scored on a sacrifice fly.  The created run gave the Twins a 6-0 lead.  Meanwhile, the Pilots had not even mounted a threat in the first five innings.

That changed in the sixth.  Tommy Davis led off with a single and Steve Whitaker hit a one-out single.  McNertney doubled home a run and Clark got an infield single to make the score 6-2.  Al Worthington then came in to retire the side with no further damage.  In the eighth, McNertney doubled again and Ray Oyler singled him in, cutting the Twins lead to 6-3.

Worthington remained in the game in the ninth.  He gave up singles to Hovley and Gus Gil, then got Davis to hit into a forceout.  At that point, Perranoski came into the game.  A ground out brought home a run, but left the Twins one out away from victory.  Pagliaroni then singled, McNertney reached on an error, and Clark singled to tie the score 6-6.

Each team threatened several times in the extra frames.  In the top of the fifteenth, Charlie Manuel drew a one-out walk and went to third on Reese's single.  Johnny Roseboro then hit into a force out that put Minnesota up 7-6.  In the bottom of the fifteenth, however, Jim Kaat gave up a home run to Pagliaroni to tie it 7-7.  Each team threatened in the sixteenth, but neither scored, and the game was suspended to the next day due to the curfew rule.

The scheduled starters for Sunday, Jim Perry and John Gelnar, took over the pitching duties in the seventeenth.  That inning was uneventful, but the Twins finally took control in the eighteenth.  Perry himself got the rally started with a one-out double.  Uhlaender got an infield single.  Carew then walked to load the bases.  A balk scored the go-ahead run and Manuel delivered a two-run double to put the Twins in front 10-7.  Two walks and a sacrifice fly rounded out the scoring.  The Pilots went down in order in the bottom of the eighteenth.

WP:  Perry (10-4).  LP:  Gelnar (2-6).  S:  None.

Notes:  Frank Quilici replaced Harmon Killebrew at third base in the eighth inning.  It's the move Billy Martin made all season, and I'm not criticizing it, but the downside of a move like that is that if the other team comes back, you lose a big bat.  In the thirteenth, Charlie Manuel pinch-hit for Quilici and went to right field, one of four times he played right field in 1969.  Tovar, who had been in right, went to third base.  The Twins outfield, by the end of the game, was Rick Renick in left, Uhlaender in center, and Manuel in right.  Manuel, of course, got the big hit in the eighteenth, so all's well that ends well.

George Mitterwald entered the game in the sixteenth inning, replacing Roseboro behind the plate.  There's no obvious reason for the move--perhaps Roseboro was simply not feeling well after catching for fifteen innings.

This was Crider's only start of the season.  He pitched well for five innings before presumably tiring in the sixth.  He had not pitched more than 3.1 innings in a game before this, and would not do so again the rest of the season.  The 3.1 innings came on July 17, just two days before this game.  The two doubles he hit were the only two he would hit all season.  On the other hand, he went 4-for-9 on the year.  Given more chances to bat in 1970, he would go 2-for-24.

Worthington had pitched 2.1 innings the previous day, yet was asked to go 3.1 in this game to get the save.  As you can see, he couldn't do it.  Billy Martin only used two actual relief pitchers, Worthington and Perranoski.  He used starters Kaat and Perry the rest of the way.  The bullpen was not overtaxed--the only other reliever who had been used over the last couple of days was Joe Grzenda, and he pitched only two-thirds of an inning.  One can only assume that Martin did not trust his other relief pitchers in a tight game.

Jim Bouton started for Seattle, his only start as a Pilot.  He pitched 3.2 innings, allowing five runs on six hits and two walks and striking out two.  The Pilots used eight pitchers in the game:  Bouton, John O'Donoghue, Dick Baney, Locker, Gene Brabender, Marty Pattin, Gelnar, and ex-Twin Garry Roggenburk.  Teams usually didn't carry more than about nine pitchers back then, so there might have only been about one pitcher left.

Each team used a pitcher as a pinch-hitter.  The Twins used Kaat to bat for Perranoski with two out and a man on first in the fourteenth, then left him in to pitch.  The Pilots used Fred Talbot to bat for Roggenburk with two out and none on in the eighteenth.  Talbot was a good hitter for pitcher, which again is not the same as saying he was a good hitter.  His career numbers were .174/255/.266.

The Twins stranded 23 men and went 4-for-18 with men in scoring position.  The Pilots stranded 21 men and went 5-for-19 with men in scoring position.

Record:  The Twins were in first place in the American League West, leading Oakland by 3.5 games.