CALIFORNIA 2, MINNESOTA 1 IN CALIFORNIA

Date:  Saturday, April 20.

Batting star:  Chili Davis was 1-for-3 with a home run, his second.

Pitching star:  Allan Anderson pitched an eight-inning complete game, giving up two runs on four hits and a walk.  He did not strike out anyone.

Opposition stars:  Kirk McCaskill pitched eight innings, giving up one run on three hits and a walk with two strikeouts.  Dave Gallagher was 2-for-2.

The game:  Not a lot of offense--the two teams combined for just seven hits.  The Angels started the scoring in the third inning, when Donnie Hill doubled, was bunted to third, and scored on a sacrifice fly.  The Twins did not have any kind of threat for seven innings, but Davis led off the eighth with a home run to tie it 1-1.  It was immediately untied in the bottom of the eighth.  Gallagher singled, went to second on a ground out, and scored on a Luis Polonia single to make it 2-1 California.  The Twins went down in order in the ninth.

WP:  McCaskill (2-1).  LP:  Anderson (1-2).  S:  Bryan Harvey (3).

Notes:  Randy Bush was in right field, with Kirby Puckett moving to center and Shane Mack on the bench.

No Twins batters got out of their slumps in this game, as the team only had three hits.  Puckett was 0-for-3 and was batting .333.  Gene Larkin pinch-hit and went 0-for-1 and was also batting .333.

Dan Gladden was 0-for-4 and was batting .032.  Kent Hrbek was 1-for-3 to raise his average to .125.  Bush was 0-for-3 and was batting .167.

This was the second consecutive game in which a Twins pitcher got a complete game loss.  I wonder when the last time is that happened.

The Twins had lost seven in a row.  They had scored twelve runs in their last six games and four runs in their last four games.  The pitching staff had allowed just eleven runs in the last four games but the team had not won any of them.

Outfielder Dave Gallagher actually had a pretty decent career.  He made the Cleveland roster coming out of spring training in 1987 but lasted only a month.  He was traded to Seattle after the season, released, and signed with the White Sox, He came up to the majors in mid-May and was their starting center fielder through 1989.  He finished fifth in Rookie of the Year voting in 1988, when he batted .303.  He only batted .266 in 1989, though, and as he had no power that wasn't good enough.  He was a reserve the rest of his career, but it was a substantial one, lasting through 1995.  He bounced around a lot, playing for Baltimore, California, the Mets, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and California again.  His best average and OPS came in his last season, when he batted .306 with an  OPS of .769.  He was only thirty-five at that point, and you'd think someone would've wanted him, but no one did and his playing career was over.  Over nine seasons he batted .271/.331/.353 in 794 games and 2343 plate appearances.  He coached in high school and community college.  He also invented an instructional device called the Stride Tutor.  He currently operates the Dave Gallagher Baseball Academy in North Trenton, New Jersey.

Record:  The Twins were 2-9, in seventh (last) place in the American League West, 5.5 games behind California and Oakland, and three games behind sixth-place Texas.