BOSTON 5, MINNESOTA 3 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Sunday, July 14.
Batting star: Randy Bush was 1-for-1 with a pinch-hit home run, his third.
Pitching stars: Carl Willis struck out two in 1.1 scoreless innings, giving up one hit. Terry Leach pitched two shutout innings, giving up two hits.
Opposition stars: Joe Hesketh pitched seven innings, giving up two runs on seven hits and no walks and striking out four. Luis Rivera was 3-for-4 with two doubles and three runs. Jack Clark was 2-for-4 with a double and two RBIs. Tom Brunansky was 2-for-4 with a double. Wade Boggs was 2-for-4 with a walk.
The game: Boggs led off the game with a single and Rivera doubled, putting men on second and third. An RBI groundout and a sacrifice fly gave the Red Sox a 2-0 lead. In the third Rivera singled, moved to second when Carlos Quintana walked, and scored on a Clark double to make it 3-0.
The Twins got on the board in the fourth when Kirby Puckett tripled and scored on a ground out. Boston got the run back in the fifth when Rivera doubled and scored on Clark's single, making the score 4-1. It went to 5-1 in the sixth when Tony Pena doubled, was bunted to third, and scored on a sacrifice fly.
The Twins tried to battle back. They scored once in the seventh when Brian Harper doubled and scored on a Scott Leius single. Bush hit a two-out pinch-hit homer in the ninth, cutting the lead to 5-3, but that was it.
WP: Hesketh (3-1). LP: David West (1-1). S: Jeff Reardon (22).
Notes: Shane Mack was in left field in place of Dan Gladden. Pedro Munoz was in right. Al Newman was at shortstop in place of Greg Gagne. Chuck Knoblauch batted leadoff, with Newman second.
Harper was 1-for-4 and was batting .330. Puckett was 1-for-4 and was batting .318. Willis had an ERA of 2.66. Leach's ERA was 3.31.
West was making his second start of the season. He pitched four innings and allowed four runs on six hits and three walks and striking out two. His ERA was 3.27.
This was the first game Munoz played since July 7, and the last major league game he would play until September.
This was the last good season of Hesketh's career. He went 12-4, 3.29, 1.27 WHIP. The only season he had that was better was in 1988 with Montreal, when he was a reliever. That year he went 4-3, 2.85, 1.35 WHIP. For his career he was 60-47, 3.78, 1.38 WHIP. He pitched in eleven seasons and appeared in 339 games, pitching 961.2 innings. He was never a star, but was a solid big league pitcher for quite a few years.
Texas defeated Toronto 8-6, so the Twins lead shrank by a game.
Record: The Twins were 50-37, in first place in the American League West, two games ahead of Texas.