MINNESOTA 2, SEATTLE 1 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Friday, September 19.
Batting stars: Tony Oliva was 2-for-4 with a stolen base, his tenth.
Pitching star: Dave Boswell struck out fourteen and pitched a complete game, giving up one run on five hits and a walk.
Opposition stars: Steve Barber pitched five innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on seven hits and no walks and striking out two. John Gelnar pitched two perfect innings, striking out one.
The game: The Twins got one-out singles from Oliva and Killebrew in the first inning, but Bob Allison hit into a double play. In the second, Rick Renick led off with a single, Leo Cardenas reached on an error, and Rod Carew singled, loading the bases with none out. The Twins got only one run out of it, and that run scored on a double play off the bat of George Mitterwald. Still, the Twins led 1-0.
The Pilots nearly tied it in the fourth, as John Donaldson led off with a triple. But Boswell struck out Steve Hovley and future Twin Danny Walton and got ex-Twin Don Mincher to ground out to second, stranding Donaldson at third. The Twins added a run in the fifth on singles by Allison and Cardenas and a force out hit by Carew, making the score 2-0.
Seattle got on the board in the seventh. Walton hit a one-out double and with two out Jerry McNertney singled him home. In the eighth the Pilots got the tying run to third. With two out, Tommy Harper walked, stole second, and went to third on a wild pitch, but Donaldson grounded out to end the inning.
WP: Boswell (18-11). LP: Barber (3-6). S: None.
Notes: Carew was moved from his customary number two spot to seventh in the batting order. Oliva moved up to second, Harmon Killebrew batted third, and Allison was fourth. Allison was in left field. Rick Renick batted fifth and played third base, with Killebrew on first.
Carew was 1-for-3 and was batting .330. Oliva was batting .312.
By game scores, this was Boswell's best game of the season, with a score of 86. His next highest score was 79, when he pitched twelve innings on July 14. The fourteen strikeouts were a season high, topping the thirteen he had on May 13 in Baltimore.
In addition to Walton and Mincher, two other players connected to the Twins played in this game. Ex-Twin Sandy Valdespino was used as a pinch-hitter and ex-Twin Ron Clark played shortstop as part of a double switch late in the game. Ex-Twin Rich Rollins was also on the 1969 Seattle Pilots, but he played only half the season before missing the rest due to injury.
Record: The Twins were 90-60, in first place in the American League West, ten games ahead of Oakland. The Athletics lost to California 7-6, so the Twins' magic number was three.