MINNESOTA 9, TEXAS 1 IN TEXAS

Date:  Wednesday, May 29.

Batting stars:  Kent Hrbek was 3-for-4 with a home run (his fourth), a double, and two runs.  Greg Gagne was 2-for-3 with a home run (his fifth), a double, and four RBIs.  Gene Larkin was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer, a stolen base, and two runs.  Shane Mack was 2-for-4.

Pitching star:  Jack Morris pitched a complete game, giving up one run on four hits and two walks and striking out eight.

Opposition stars:  Ruben Sierra was 2-for-3.  Eric Nolte pitched two perfect innings and struck out one.

The game:  The Rangers took the early lead, getting on the board in the first inning as Brian Downing doubled and Sierra singled him in.  It was all Twins after that, and they started in the very next inning.  Hrbek and Chili Davis started the inning with back-to-back doubles to tie the score.  Brian Harper walked.  The next two batters went out, but Gagne hit a three-run homer to give the Twins a 4-1 lead.

The Twins added a run in the fourth when Larkin hit a two-out single, stole second (!), and scored on a Shane Mack single.  They put it out of reach in the sixth.  Hrbek hit a solo homer with one out.  With two out, Harper walked and Larkin hit a two-run homer.  Mack followed with a single and scored on Gagne's double.  It was 9-1 Twins, and that's where it stayed.

WP:  Morris (5-5).  LP:  Nolan Ryan (3-4).  S:  None.

Notes:  Mack started in left field, with Dan Gladden out of the lineup.  Gladden entered the game in the seventh to give Kirby Puckett a break, with Mack moving to center.  Chuck Knoblauch moved into the leadoff spot, with Al Newman, who was at third base, batting second.  Larkin was in right field.  Scott Leius came into the game in the eighth inning at shortstop to give Gagne the rest of the game off.

Harper was 0-for-2 with two walks.  His average fell to .355.  Puckett was 0-for-4 and dropped to .337.  Gagne went up to .312.  Davis was 1-for-4 and was batting .307.

Leius went 0-for-1 to drop his average to .171.

Morris threw 123 pitches in the complete game.

This was one of two stolen bases in 1991 for Larkin.  The other would come on September 28.  He was 2-for-5 in stealing bases that year.  For his career, he was 23-for-40.  His career high in stolen bases was seven in 1992.  He went 7-for-9 that season.  It was also one of two home runs Larkin hit in 1991.  The other would come on August 6.  For his career, he hit 32 home runs, with a high of eight in 1988.  My guess would be that this was the only time he hit a home run and stole a base in the same game, but I didn't actually check to see if that's true.

I doubt that many people would've predicted that, with May nearly over Gagne would have more home runs than Hrbek.  It would not stay that way all season, of course.

Nolan Ryan lasted just four innings for Texas, allowing five runs on five hits and a walk and striking out four.  Ryan was forty-four in 1991, but he was still an effective pitcher.  He went 12-6, 2.91 and led the league in WHIP at 1.01.  1991 was the first time in five years that he did not lead the league in strikeouts, and that's largely because injuries limited him to 173 innings--he still led the league in strikeouts per nine innings.  We remember Nolan Ryan as a great pitcher, but we sometimes forget that he was a great old pitcher, quite possibly the best old pitcher there's ever been.

Record:  The Twins were 22-24, in fifth place in the American League West, but just two percentage points ahead of sixth-place Chicago.  They trailed first-place Texas by 5.5 games and were two games behind fourth-place Seattle.