MINNESOTA 6, BOSTON 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Sunday, August 31.

Batting stars:  Jim Perry was 2-for-3.  Johnny Roseboro was 2-for-4.  Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-3 with a home run (his thirty-eighth) and a walk.  Ted Uhlaender was 1-for-4 with a three-run homer, his seventh.

Pitching stars:  Perry pitched 7.1 innings, giving up two runs on seven hits and no walks and striking out three.  Ron Perranoski pitched 1.2 scoreless innings, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Russ Gibson was 2-for-3.  Bill Landis pitched three shutout innings of relief, giving up three hits and a walk.

The game:  It was scoreless until the bottom of the third.  Leo Cardenas led off the third with a walk and Perry singled.  Uhlaender then hit a three-run homer to make it 3-0 Twins.  Later in the inning Killebrew homered to take the lead to 4-0, which was all the Twins would need.

Perry was in complete control for seven innings, allowing just three singles and only once allowing a man to get to second base.  He perhaps tired in the eighth, giving up consecutive singles to Dalton Jones and Gibson.  He struck out Dick Schofield, but then gave up back-to-back RBI singles to Syd O'Brien and Mike Andrews.  Perranoski came in to get a double play and end the inning.  The Twins got the runs back in the bottom of the eighth, as Cesar Tovar reached on an error, Killebrew walked, and Rick Renick and Roseboro delivered two-out RBI singles.

Boston got only a one-out single in the ninth.

WP:  Perry (17-5).  LP:  Vicente Romo (5-10).  S:  Perranoski (25).

Notes:  It was again Uhlaender in center, Tovar at second, and Graig Nettles in left.  Uhlaender extended his hitting streak to thirteen games with his home run.

Rich Reese was 1-for-4 and was batting .331.  Oliva was 0-for-3 with a walk and was batting .313.  Perry's ERA was 2.91.  Perranoski's ERA was 2.12.

Frank Quilici was used as a pinch-runner for Killebrew in the eighth and remained in the game at third base.  Renick pinch-hit for Nettles in the eighth and remained in the game in left field.  Renick was more naturally an infielder--it seems strange that Billy Martin did not put Renick at third, Quilici at second, and move Tovar into the outfield.

Boston's starter was Vicente Romo, who pitched four innings and allowed four runs on three hits and three walks and struck out two.  Romo was generally a relief pitcher, but he made 11 starts for the Red Sox in 1969 and 10 in 1970.  He wasn't very good at it--for his career as a starter he was 7-10, 4.39, 1.42 WHIP and averaged less than five innings per start.  As a reliever he was 25-23, 52 saves, 3.04, 1.28 WHIP.  He played for several different teams.  He made his major league debut with the Dodgers in 1968 as a rule 5 selection, but was returned to Cleveland after one appearance.  He was with the Indians until April of 1969, when he was traded to Boston.  He was traded to the White Sox just before the 1971 season and was traded to San Diego after the 1972 campaign.  He stayed with the Padres through 1974.  He then went to Mexico from 1975-1981.  Surprisingly, he had a major league swan song, pitching quite well for the Dodgers in fifteen games in 1982.  He went back to Mexico for four more seasons before his playing career ended in 1986.  He continues to be a coach in Mexico.  I don't know why he moved around so much, but he looks like he was a pretty good reliever.

Record:  The Twins were 79-52, in first place in the American League West, 4.5 games ahead of Oakland.  I believe that's the largest lead they've had so far.

BOSTON 7, MINNESOTA 5 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Saturday, August 30.

Batting stars:  Cesar Tovar was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer (his seventh) and a double.  Leo Cardenas was 1-for-2 with two walks.

Pitching star:  Dick Woodson pitched two shutout innings, giving up one hit and one walk.

Opposition stars:  Mike Andrews was 3-for-4 with a three-run homer (his eleventh) and a walk, scoring twice.  Tony Conigliaro was 1-for-3 with a home run (his eighteenth) and a walk.  Syd O'Brien was 1-for-4 with a home run (his sixth) and a walk.  Sparky Lyle struck out three in 2.1 scoreless innings, giving up only a walk.

The game:  The Red Sox threatened in the first, putting two men on with two out, but did not score until the second, when Conigliaro led off with a home run to give them a 1-0 lead.  O'Brien led off the third with a home run to make it 2-0.  The Twins did not get a baserunner until the fourth, when Tovar hit a one-out double.  He was stranded a second.

Boston took a commanding lead in the fifth.  Opposing pitcher Mike Nagy was hit by a pitch, O'Brien walked, and Andrews hit a three-run homer to make the score 5-0.  The Red Sox continued to add on runs.  In the sixth, Rico Petrocelli got an infield hit and scored on Jerry Moses' two-out triple.  In the seventh, Andrews reached on a single-plus-error, went to third on a ground out, and scored on a pickoff error to put Boston ahead 7-0.

The Twins tried to come back in the seventh.  Rich Reese led off with a double and scored on a one-out single by George Mitterwald.  Cardenas walked.  With two down, Ted Uhlaender hit a two-run double which was followed by Tovar's two-run homer, leaving the Twins down by only two at 7-5.

But that was it.  Lyle came in after the Tovar home run.  He retired Tony Oliva to end the seventh, retired the Twins in order in the eighth, and allowed only a one-out walk in the ninth.

WP:  Nagy (10-2).  LP:  Dave Boswell (14-10).  S:  Lyle (13).

Notes:  Uhlaender was again in center field, with Tovar at second base.  Graig Nettles was in left.  Johnny Roseboro started the game behind the plate, but was replaced by Mitterwald at the start of the seventh.  The reason is not obvious in the play-by-play, and Roseboro would come back to catch the entire game the next day, so if it was an injury or illness it apparently was nothing serious.

Reese was 1-for-4 and was batting .332.  Oliva was 0-for-4 and was batting .315.

Uhlaender extended his hitting streak to twelve games, going 1-for-5 with a double.  He only got back into the lineup because Rod Carew has been out, which resulted in Tovar moving from center field to second base.  It will be interesting to see if he remains in the lineup once Carew returns.

Boswell pitched five innings.  He allowed five runs on four hits and three walks and struck out two.  Nagy was in control for six innings, but his line is 6.2 innings, five runs, eight hits, one walk, no strikeouts.

This was Mike Nagy's rookie year, and it was a heck of a year.  At age twenty-one, he went 12-2, 3.11 in twenty-eight starts.  He finished second to Lou Piniella in Rookie of the Year voting and had a substantially higher WAR (3.0 to 2.1).  On the other hand, he had a FIP of 4.10, a WHIP of 1.47, and walked 4.9 batters per nine innings, which should have (and probably did) tell people that it wouldn't last.  In 1970 he went 6-5, 4.48, 1.57 WHIP and he never got a full season in the majors again.  He was with the Red Sox through 1972, with St. Louis in 1973, and with Houston through 1975.  His career major league numbers are 20-13, 4.15, 1.53 WHIP in 418.2 innings.  He appeared in 87 games, starting 62 of them.  After his major league career ended, he had four successful years pitching in Mexico (1976-1979).  He posted an ERA of 2.01 in his time there, the lowest of any Mexican League pitcher with over five hundred innings.  He then went into the real estate business and had a successful career before retiring in 2011.  At last report, he was living in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts.

Record:  The Twins were 78-52, in first place in the American League West, 3.5 games ahead of Oakland.