MILWAUKEE 5, MINNESOTA 1 IN MILWAUKEE
Date: Thursday, May 2.
Batting stars: Kirby Puckett was 1-for-3 with a triple and a walk. Brian Harper was 1-for-3 with a walk.
Pitching star: Kevin Tapani pitched seven innings, giving up three runs on eight hits and one walk and striking out five.
Opposition stars: Kevin Brown pitched 6.2 innings, giving up one run on four hits and five walks and striking out four. Chuck Crim pitched 2.1 scoreless innings, giving up one hit and striking out one. Willie Randolph was 2-for-4 with a stolen base and two RBIs. Paul Molitor was 2-for-4 with a double.
The game: The Twins drew two walks in the first inning but did nothing with them. In the bottom of the second, Franklin Stubbs led off with a double and scored on a two-out single by Randolph. The Twins got another man to second base in the fifth when Scott Leius walked and stole second with two out, but there he stayed. The Twins tied it in the sixth, however, when Puckett hit a one-out triple and scored on Harper's single.
It didn't stay tied long. In the bottom of the sixth, Robin Yount led off with a single and Stubbs walked. Greg Vaughn bunted the runners over, Dante Bichette hit a sacrifice fly, and Randolph had an RBI single to give the Brewers a 3-1 lead.
The Twins got singles from Carmelo Castillo and Greg Gagne in the seventh, but they were stranded. It was the last threat the Twins had. Milwaukee added two insurance runs in the eighth. Vaughn walked and scored on Bichette's double. Bichette then stole third and scored when Randolph's fly ball was missed by right fielder Gene Larkin.
WP: Brown (2-0). LP: Tapani (2-1). S: Crim (3).
Notes: Castillo was the DH, with Chili Davis out of the lineup. Kent Hrbek was dropped down to the sixth spot in the order, with Harper batting fourth and Larkin fifth. With Larkin in right, Puckett was again in center.
Al Newman pinch-hit for Castillo in the ninth. It was one of twenty-four times he was used as a pinch-hitter in 1991. I don't know the circumstances of all of them--he may have been batting in a blowout to give a regular a rest sometimes. But still, it says something about your bench, or your manager, or both, that you use a player like him as a pinch-hitter that many times.
Larkin was 0-for-4 and was batting .342. Harper was batting .327. Puckett was at .326. Chuck Knoblauch was 1-for-4 and was batting .313. Gagne was 1-for-3 and was at .305. Tapani's ERA went to 2.43.
Newman was 0-for-1 as a pinch-hitter and was batting .150. Randy Bush was 0-for-1 as a pinch-hitter and was batting .160. Hrbek was 0-for-3 with a walk and was batting .171. Gladden was 0-for-3 with a walk and fell back below the Mendoza line at .197. Terry Leach pitched one inning, giving up two runs (one earned) on a hit and a walk and had an ERA of 5.14.
Look at this lineup the Brewers used: Molitor, Jim Gantner, Yount, Stubbs, Vaughn, Bichette, Randolph, B. J. Surhoff, Dale Sveum. Those are some pretty big names. Granted, a few of them (Vaughn, Bichette, Surhoff) were still near the beginning of their careers and were not yet what they would become. Still, that sounds like a pretty formidable lineup. What Franklin Stubbs was doing in the middle of it is another question, but I guess you can't have everything.
The Kevin Brown who pitched is not "the" Kevin Brown. This Kevin Brown appeared in 24 games over 3 seasons. By game scores, this was his second-best game of the season and third-best of his career. For his career, he was 3-5, 4.82, 1.46 WHIP. He made thirteen career starts and pitched a total of 89.2 major league innings.
I had completely forgotten that Willie Randolph had played for Milwaukee. The Yankees had decided he was done after a 1988 season in which he batted .230. He went to the Dodgers in 1989 and made the all-star team. He split 1990 between the Dodgers and Oakland, then went to the Brewers for 1991. At age thirty-six, he had one of the best years of his career, batting .327/.424/.374. He went to the Mets in 1992, then was done. He managed the Mets from 2005-2008. He has coached for a couple of teams, and is currently a coach for the United States National Team at the WSBC Premier12, an international baseball championship.
Record: The Twins were 10-12, tied for fifth with Seattle in the American League West, 4.5 games behind Oakland.
The Brewers had acquired Bichette (age 27 season) from California in exchange for Dave Parker (age 40 season) in March. Bichette had hit .255/..292/.433 (103 OPS+) over 371 PA in 1990, and had fewer than 600 PA going back to 1988, so he wasn’t exactly a hot prospect. Still, that meant the Angels had 40 year old Dave Parker as their DH and 39 year old Dave Winfield (-2.6 dWAR in 1991) as their primary right fielder. Bichette was solidly mediocre for the Brewers in 1991 (84 OPS+), but slightly above average (104 OPS+) in 1992. Milwaukee traded him to Colorado the same day as the 1992 expansion draft, which made Bichette an Original Rockie despite not being exposed to the draft.
Speaking of big names, Gary Sheffield was still a Brewer during this period. He must have been on the shelf for this game, because he didn’t play for Milwaukee between 28 April and 12 May, and b-ref doesn’t record any minor league appearances for him that season.
In fact, Sheffield only got into 50 games for the Brewers, which makes his -1.0- dWAR pretty impressive. That’s even worse than Tony Batista’s -0.7 in 50 games at the hot corner with the Twins in 2006. Ryan Braun was -2.9 in 112 games at third in 2007. Granted, the defensive stats are more reliable for Braun or Batista than early career Sheffield, but that’s the realm of putrid Sheffield’s fielding could be measured against. Both the Padres and Marlins tried Sheffield at third in 1992 & 1993; I guess the bat kept people dreaming.
Even more impressive since it includes his positional adjustment as a third baseman, though that comes out to zero with so little playing time (+1 for Batista). I'm trying to decide if his final years in San Diego or Florida come out as worse. He achieved a -18 in 68 games for the Padres and replicated his '91 fielding of -10 but in 40 games for the Marlins in right.
Hrbek stole his second base during the game which somehow put him into a tie for the team lead.
Kirby complained after the game about the team getting Jeremy'd. "I don't know what it is about those kinds of guys," Puckett said. "That guy wasn't overpowering or anything."
"He was inconsistent enough with the strike zone to make it hard for us to get into a groove against him," Brian Harper explained.
"You can say that we hadn't seen him before, but other people who haven't seen him before are scoring some runs," Kelly deadpanned.
The Brewers had played 19 innings the previous day, so the Twins were especially frustrated that they couldn't do any early damage against the young starter.
Kirby thought differently about Liebrandt