MINNESOTA 6, NEW YORK 0 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Friday, August 22.
Batting stars: Leo Cardenas was 2-for-3 with a walk. Tony Oliva was 2-for-4 with two home runs (his sixteenth and seventeenth) and five RBIs. Ted Uhlaender was 2-for-5.
Pitching stars: Dave Boswell pitched eight shutout innings, giving up seven hits and one walk and striking out two. Ron Perranoski pitched a perfect inning and struck out one.
Opposition star: Mike Kekich pitched a scoreless inning.
The game: The Twins opened the bottom of the first with singles by Uhlaender and Cesar Tovar but Oliva lined into a double play, leaving just a man on first with two out. Tovar then went to third on a stolen base-plus-error, Harmon Killebrew then walked and Rich Reese singled, giving the Twins a 1-0 lead.
The Yankees got a pair of singles in the third but could do nothing with them. In the bottom of the third, Uhlaender singled and Oliva hit a two-run homer, making the score 3-0.
New York missed a chance to get back into the game in the sixth. Tom Shopay led off with a single and Gene Michael hit a one-out double, putting men on second and third. Roy White then hit back to the pitcher, who threw Shopay out at the plate. Joe Pepitone flied out and the inning was over. They had another chance in the seventh. Ron Woods and Jerry Kenney singled with one out. Jake Gibbs struck out, but a wild pitch put men on second and third and ex-Twin Jimmie Hall walked, loading the bases. Horace Clarke then grounded out to end the inning.
The Twins put it out of reach in the seventh. Cardenas led off with a single, Tovar drew a two-out walk, and Oliva hit a three-run homer to make the score 6-0. The Yankees did not get a man on base in either of the last two innings.
WP: Boswell (13-9). LP: Stan Bahnsen (7-12). S: Perranoski (23).
Notes: Uhlaender remained in center and Tovar at second base. Graig Nettles was the left fielder in this game.
Reese was 1-for-3 with a walk and was batting .336. Oliva raised his average to .321.
Boswell was allowed to bat for himself in the bottom of the eighth. He was hit by a pitch and then was removed for a pinch-runner. He did not miss a start, so one assumes the removal was simply precautionary. The pinch-runner, by the way, was Tom Hall. It used to be common for pitchers to be used as pinch-runners. It seems like, with today's short benches, that wouldn't be a bad strategy to use. Yes, pitchers aren't particularly used to running the bases, but one would think they could learn. The downside of it, I suppose, is that all it would take is one pitcher getting hurt running the bases for every second-guesser in the world to say, "Why did you have a pitcher pinch-running, you idiot!" So it probably won't happen. I still think it would be a good idea, though.
I remember Tom Shopay more as a Baltimore Oriole, which is understandable--he played for them from 1971-1972 and again from 1975-1977. What's not understandable, really, is why I remember Tom Shopay at all. He played in parts of seven seasons, but he never had more than 79 plate appearances in any of them. He was an outfielder, although he was frequently used as a pinch-hitter. Of his 341 career plate appearances, 116 of them were as a pinch-hitter. He wasn't particularly good at it, batting .210/.307/.230 as a pinch-hitter. Those numbers aren't far off his career numbers--.201/.262/.259. It's hard to say why he kept getting chances in the majors. His AAA numbers are okay, but nothing to shout about--.284/.348/.408 in 3182 plate appearances. He really didn't even take advantage of the vagaries of small sample sizes in the majors--other than his first year 1967, he never even approached an OPS of .600. He was probably a really nice guy--he wouldn't have kept getting chances if he wasn't. It sounds like he had a successful career in business after baseball. At last report, he was living in Miami.
Record: The Twins were 73-50, in first place in the American League West, 2.5 games ahead of Oakland.