DETROIT 3, MINNESOTA 0 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Thursday, May 9.
Batting star: Shane Mack was 1-for-2 with a walk.
Pitching stars: Kevin Tapani pitched seven innings, giving up three runs on five hits and two walks and striking out six. Steve Bedrosian struck out two in two shutout innings, giving up a walk.
Opposition stars: Dan Petry pitched 6.2 scoreless innings, giving up six hits and one walk and striking out one. Paul Gibson pitched 2.1 scoreless innings, giving up one hit and striking out one. Cecil Fielder was 1-for-4 with a two-run homer, his fourth. Mickey Tettleton was 1-for-4 with a home run, his fourth.
The game: The Twins got a man to second in the second and the Tigers got a man to second in the third, but no one went farther until the fourth. Alan Trammell led off with a walk and with one out Fielder hit a two-run homer to make it 2-0 Detroit.
Each team got a man to third in the sixth, but there was no more scoring until the seventh, when Tettleton led off with a home run. In the bottom of the seventh came the only time the Twins had more than one man on base. With two out, Brian Harper and Gene Larkin singled and Shane Mack walked, loading the bases. Carmelo Castillo pinch-hit and grounded to second, ending the inning. The Twins had only one baserunner the rest of the game.
WP: Petry (1-1). LP: Tapani (2-2). S: Gibson (3).
Notes: Larkin was at first base in place of Kent Hrbek. Mack was in right field.
Brian Harper was 1-for-4 and was batting .333. Kirby Puckett was 1-for-4 and was batting .314. Chili Davis was 0-for-4 and was batting .308. Chuck Knoblauch was 1-for-4 and was batting .305. Tapani had an ERA of 2.66.
Castillo was 0-for-1 as a pinch-hitter and was batting .167.
Mack finally got over the Mendoza line at .205.
The Twins had seven hits, but no batter had more than one. The seventh was the only time the Twins got more than one hit in an inning. The two teams combined to go 0-for-10 with men in scoring position.
Dan Petry was a pretty good pitcher for six seasons, before overuse caught up with him. He came up to the Tigers in July of 1979, at age 20, and went 6-5, 3.95 in fifteen starts. From 1982-1985, his age 23 through 26 seasons, he made 142 starts (35.5 per season) and pitched 984.1 innings (246 per season). He went 67-41, 3.45 in those years. He finished in the top ten in Cy Young voting in two of those years and made his only all-star team in 1985. He was never able to make more than 23 starts or pitch more than 150 innings after that, nor was he able to have an ERA below 4.30. The Tigers traded him to California after the 1987 season, but he came back to Detroit as a free agent in 1990. This was one of only six starts he made in 1991. He went to the bullpen in late May, was traded to Atlanta at the end of June, and was traded to Boston in mid-August. 1991 was the last season of his career, but it was a fine career. He went 125-104, 3.95, 1.36 WHIP in 2080.1 innings. He played in 370 games and made 300 starts. And for a four year period, he was one of the top pitchers in the game.
Record: The Twins were 13-15, sixth in the American League West, five games behind Oakland. They were a half-game behind California and Texas for fourth place.
Captain Hook yanked Petry after just 67 pitches. He commented about how Petry had been frequently injured since 1985, but noted that Petry may have had his sharpest slider of his career during the game. Both Puckett and Davis hit flies to the warning track in the seventh inning before Petry was pulled.
This was Castillo’s last major league plate appearance. The Twins released him the day after this game. Fifteen days later, Castillo signed with the Brewers. He got over 350 PA with the Denver Zephyrs, then Brewers’ AAA affiliate, hitting .302/.341/.509. The Zephyrs played at Mile High Stadium and won the American Association championship that season under manager Tony Muser.* Castillo played one more year in organized baseball (that we have on record, anyway) with the Tabasco Olmecas in 1992. He managed the 1996 DSL Rangers, but after that, he appears to have no further affiliation with MLB. Carmelo “Carmen” Castillo died at age 57, on 15 November 2015, in Santo Domingo, DR.
* The Zephyrs had a number of notable players: 1992 ROY Pat Listach, future (current) Australian Olympic Team manager Dave Nilsson, future (current) Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo, and future (current) Royals pitching coach Cal Eldred. After the 1992 season, the Zephyrs vacated Denver and moved to New Orleans. After 23 years as the New Orleans Zephyrs, the team changed its name to the New Orleans Baby Cakes. Sadly, the Marlins won’t let us have a cool minor league franchise in New Orleans, and will move the team to Wichita in 2020.