MINNESOTA 4, KANSAS CITY 2 IN KANSAS CITY

Date:  Thursday, May 30.

Batting stars:  Greg Gagne was 2-for-3.  Chili Davis was 1-for-4 with a home run, his ninth.

Pitching star:  Mark Guthrie pitched 7.1 innings, giving up one run on six hits and three walks and striking out four.

Opposition star:  Mark Gubicza pitched 7.1 innings, giving up three runs on five hits and two walks and striking out three.

The game:  The Twins opened the scoring in the third.  Gene Larkin led off with a walk and was followed by singles by Mike Pagliarulo and Gagne to bring home the first run.  A fly ball and a force out scored a second run to put the Twins up 2-0.

The Royals threatened in the bottom of the third, as one-out singles by Terry Shumpert and Brian McRae were followed by a double steal to put men on second and third.  Shumpert, however, was thrown out trying to score on an grounder to third and another ground out ended the inning.  Kansas City did get on the board in the fifth when Kurt Stillwell led off with a triple and Bill Pecota followed with a double, but the next three batters could not get the ball out of the infield and the score stayed 2-1.

The Twins got some insurance in the late innings.  In the eighth, Pagliarulo walked and scored on Gagne's single-plus-error.  Davis hit a two-out solo homer in the ninth.  The Royals got one more in the bottom of the ninth, as Jim Eisenreich led off with a double and scored on a two-out single by Kirk Gibson, but McRae grounded out to end the game.

WP:  Guthrie (4-3).  LP:  Gubicza (1-3).  S:  Aguilera (10).

Notes:  Larkin was in right field.  Mack replaced him in the field in the eighth.  In the top of the eighth, Al Newman pinch-ran for Pagliarulo and Randy Bush pinch-hit for Chuck Knoblauch.  Newman remained in the game at second with Scott Leius coming in to play third.

Brian Harper was 0-for-4, dropping his average to .344.  He was now 2-for-16 in his last four games.  Kirby Puckett was 0-for-4 and was batting .330.  Gagne raised his average to .320.  Davis was batting .305.  Rick Aguilera pitched 1.2 innings and gave up a run, but his ERA was still just 1.88.

This was the last really good start Guthrie would have in 1991.  Not that every other start was awful, but his best were no more than okay, and as we all know, just okay is not okay.  He went to the bullpen at the end of June and did quite well there the rest of the season.

I remember thinking that Terry Shumpert would be a good player.  He wasn't, and looking back on it I don't know why I thought he would be.  1991 was his only season as a mostly-regular, and he batted just .217 with an OPS of .605.  He stayed in the Royals organization through 1994, went to Boston in 1995, to the Cubs in 1996, and to San Diego in 1997.  Each year he would play a handful of games in the majors, but he never did much.  Then he signed with Colorado for 1998 and had the season of his life.  In 304 plate appearances he batted .347/.413/.584, for a .997 OPS.  He had never done anything close to that before and never would again.  His next highest batting average was .289, also with Colorado in 2001.  His next highest OPS was .796 with Colorado in 2000.  By 2002, however, even playing in Colorado couldn't save him.  His OPS dropped to .676, he played one more year for Tampa Bay, and then was done.  His numbers for the Rockies are .282/.349/.463; his career numbers are .252/.315/.409.  If there was ever a poster boy for a Coors Field effect, it would be Terry Shumpert.

Record:  The Twins were 23-24, fifth in the American League West, 5.5 games behind Oakland.  They were two games behind fourth-place Seattle and a game ahead of sixth-place Chicago.