MINNESOTA 5, NEW YORK 0 IN NEW YORK
Date: Monday, June 24.
Batting stars: Shane Mack was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer (his seventh), a double, and two runs. Kirby Puckett was 2-for-4 with a home run (his ninth) and two runs.
Pitching star: Scott Erickson pitched a complete game shutout, giving up two hits and a walk and striking out six.
Opposition star: Jeff Johnson pitched eight innings, giving up three runs on four hits and a walk and striking out none.
The game: Through five innings there were only two hits, both by the Yankees. They put a man on third base in the second, as Matt Nokes doubled and went to third on a wild pitch, but Alvaro Espinoza grounded out to end the inning. Meanwhile, the first fifteen Twins batters were retired.
Junior Ortiz gave the Twins their first baserunner with a leadoff walk in the sixth. He was bunted to second, and with two out Dan Gladden got the Twins' first hit, an RBI triple that made it 1-0 Minnesota. In the seventh, Puckett led off with a home run, followed by Mack's double and a Pedro Munoz RBI single to give the Twins a 3-0 lead. In the ninth, PUckett had a one-out single and Mack hit a two-run homer to make it 5-0.
The Yankees did not get a hit after Nokes' second-inning double. Their other hit was a single by Don Mattingly in the first. Their only baserunner after the second was Kevin Maas, who walked leading off the seventh and did not get past first base.
WP: Erickson (12-2). LP: Johnson (1-3). S: None.
Notes: Gene Larkin was at first base, as Hrbek remained out. With Erickson pitching, Ortiz was catching. Munoz was the DH in place of Chili Davis. Mack batted in the fourth spot.
Puckett raised his average to .328. Erickson's ERA went down to 1.39.
Erickson was an incredible pitcher to this point of the season. 12-2, 1.39 ERA, 1.07 WHIP in 116.1 innings. He would not sustain that, of course, and it was not reasonable to think he could. In fact, he would never have a half-season like that again. As we've said before, Tom Kelly rode him pretty hard for a twenty-three year old in his first full season, and he eventually had to pay the price for that. But for the first half of 1991, he was the best there was.
This was the fourth start of Jeff Johnson's major league career. He would appear in parts of three major league seasons, all with the Yankees. He made twenty-three starts in 1991 and went 6-11, 5.95, 1.49 WHIP. That was as good as it would get for him--he would appear in thirteen games (eight starts) in 1992 and make two more starts in 1993, and his numbers got worse each season. For his career, he was 8-16, 6.52, 1.63 WHIP. He had good seasons in AAA at that time--4-0, 2.61, 1.34 WHIP in 10 starts in 1991 and 2-1, 2.17, 1.02 WHIP in 11 starts in 1992. I don't know why he had so few decisions in that many starts. I also don't know why he could not translate his AAA success into major league success, but he clearly couldn't. I wish the Yankees had more pitchers like that these days. Jeff Johnson has been a minor league pitching coach for several seasons.
Record: The Twins were 43-27, in first place in the American League West, 3.5 games ahead of Oakland.