MINNESOTA 3, BOSTON 2 IN BOSTON (11 INNINGS)

Date:  Friday, July 19.

Batting stars:  Kent Hrbek was 3-for-3 with a walk.  Scott Leius was 3-for-4 with a triple and a double.  Shane Mack was 2-for-4.  Randy Bush was 1-for-1 with a home run, his fourth.

Pitching stars:  David West pitched six innings, giving up two runs on seven hits and three walks and striking out none.  Carl Willis pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and a walk.  Steve Bedrosian pitched 2.2 scoreless innings, giving up one hit and striking out two.  Rick Aguilera pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Joe Hesketh pitched 6.1 innings, giving up one run on nine hits and two walks and striking out five.  Wade Boggs was 4-for-4 with a triple.  Tony Pena was 1-for-4 with a home run, his fourth.

The game:  The Twins opened the game with two singles, but never advanced either runner.  The Red Sox got a single and two walks in the bottom of the first but also did not score.  The Twins got a single, a walk, and a double in the second, but due to a caught stealing again did not score.  Boston got three singles in the third, but a runner was thrown out at the plate and the game still remained scoreless.

The theme continues.  In the fourth the Twins got a walk and a single and could not score.  In the fifth Leius led off with a triple and still did not score.

In the bottom of the fifth the Red Sox finally broke through.  Pena led off with a home run.  With one out, Boggs tripled and Reed singled to make it 2-0 Boston.

The Twins got a pair of singles in the sixth, but a double play took them out of the inning.  Finally, in the seventh, Leius hit a one-out double and scored on Kirby Puckett's two-out double to get the Twins on the board.  It was still 2-1 through eight, but Bush came through with a pinch-hit homer in the ninth to tie the score 2-2.  Boston got a leadoff double from Ellis Burks in the bottom of the ninth, but again did not score, so we went to extra innings.

Neither team threatened in the tenth.  With two out in the eleventh, Chuck Knoblauch singled and scored all the way from first on a Mike Pagliarulo single to put the Twins ahead.  Mike Greenwell got a one-out single in the bottom of the eleventh, but he did not move past first base and the Twins came away with the win.

WP:  Bedrosian (3-2).  LP:  Greg Harris (6-9).  S:  Aguilera (25).

Notes:  Mack was again in left field in place of Dan Gladden.  Gene Larkin was in right.  Al Newman was at second base in place of Knoblauch.  Leius was again in the leadoff spot, with Newman batting second.

Jarvis Brown pinch-ran for Kent Hrbek in the eighth and stayed in the game in right field, with Larkin moving to first base.  Knoblauch pinch-hit for Greg Gagne in the ninth and stayed in the game at second base, with Newman moving to shortstop.  Bush pinch-hit for Leius in the ninth, with Mike Pagliarulo coming in to play third base.

Harper was 0-for-5 and was batting .325.  Puckett was 1-for-5 and was batting .324.  West lowered his ERA to 3.18.  Willis' ERA was 2.59.  Bedrosian went down to 3.35.  Aguilera went down to 2.95.

Brown was 0-for-1 and was batting .154.

The Twins stranded eleven runners and were 1-for-14 with men in scoring position.  The Red Sox stranded eight runners and were 2-for-10 with men in scoring position.

Pagliarulo extended his hitting streak to eight games, despite only getting one at-bat.  He was 16-for-25 over that stretch and raised his average to .294.

This was the lowest West's ERA would be for the rest of the season.  He would end up at 4.54.

Oakland and California both lost, but Chicago won to take over second place.

Record:  The Twins were 53-38, in first place in the American League West, 4.5 games ahead of Chicago.