1991 Rewind: Game One Hundred Forty-five

MINNESOTA 9, KANSAS CITY 0 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Monday, September 16.

Batting star:  Brian Harper was 2-for-3 with a three-run homer (his tenth) and two runs.

Pitching stars:  Kevin Tapani pitched 7.1 scoreless innings, giving up three hits and two walks and striking out seven.  Paul Abbott struck out three in 1.2 scoreless innings, giving up a walk.

Opposition stars:  Bill Pecota was 2-for-4.  Storm Davis struck out three in three innings of relief, giving up one run on three hits.

The game:  Singles by Dan Gladden and Chuck Knoblauch put men on first and third with none out.  Gladden scored on a sacrifice fly.  Knoblauch then went to third on a stolen base-plus-error and scored on a ground out, making it 2-0 Twins.  In the fourth, Kent Hrbek and Chili Davis started the inning with back-to-back doubles.  Harper singled and Shane Mack was hit by a pitch, loading the bases.  A pair of sacrifice flies made it 5-0.

Meanwhile, the Royals did not get a hit for the first four innings.  They got a pair of singles in the fifth, but nothing came of it.  The Twins put the game out of reach in the bottom of the fifth when Hrbek and Davis walked and Harper followed with a three-run homer, making it 8-0.  In the eighth, Lenny Webster doubled and Mike Pagliarulo singled to bring the final to 9-0.

WP:  Tapani (15-8).  LP:  Mark Gubicza (8-10).  S:  None.

Notes:  The box score looks like a spring training game, with Pagliarulo the only Twin to play the whole game.  Sadly, with the roster restrictions, we won't see this any more.  Scott Leius pinch-hit for Greg Gagne in the sixth and stayed in the game at shortstop.  Paul Sorrento replaced Kent Hrbek at first base in the seventh.  Al Newman replaced Knoblauch at second base in the seventh.  Pedro Munoz replaced Gladden in left field in the seventh.  Gene Larkin replaced Mack in right field in the seventh.  Jarvis Brown replaced Kirby Puckett in center in the eighth.  Lenny Webster replaced Harper at catcher in the eighth.  Randy Bush pinch-hit for Davis in the eighth.

Puckett was 0-for-3 and was batting .324.  Harper raised his average to .314.  Mack was 1-for-2 to make his average .313.  Webster was 1-for-1 and was batting .409.  Tapani lowered his ERA to 2.83.

Sorrento was 0-for-1 and was batting .167.

Tapani's game score of 77 was his second-highest of the year.  It was topped only by an 82 in a complete game shutout on April 12, his first start of the season.

The White Sox did not play, so the Twins gained a half-game.

Record:  The Twins were 87-58, in first place in the American League West, eight games ahead of Chicago.

In the East, Toronto lost to Seattle 6-5 but Boston lost to Baltimore 9-2, so the Blue Jays' lead remained 3.5 games.

Happy Birthday–February 28

Terry Turner (1881)
Jud Wilson (1897)
Bob Howsam (1918)
George Maloney (1928)
Frank Malzone (1930)
Bill Haller (1935)
Marty Perez (1946)
Mark Wiley (1948)
Tom Gamboa (1948)
Jim Wohlford (1951)
Mike Milchin (1968)
Trent Oeltjen (1983)
Aaron Thompson (1987)
Aroldis Chapman (1988)
Niko Goodrum (1992)

Jud Wilson played in the Negro Leagues from 1922-1945 and had a lifetime batting average of .351.

Bob Howsam was the general manager of the Cincinnati Reds and helped put together the Big Red Machine.

George Maloney was an American League umpire from 1969-1983.

Bill Haller is the older brother of Tom Haller and was an American League umpire from 1963-1982.

Tom Gamboa was a minor league manager who won league championships twice and reached the playoffs four other times in a ten year career.  Unfortunately, he is best known as the Kansas City Royals coach attacked by two White Sox "fans" in Comiskey Park in 2002.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–February 28

Happy Birthday–February 29

Dickey Pearce (1836)
Pepper Martin (1904)
Al Rosen (1924)
Steve Mingori (1944)
Terrence Long (1976)

Predictably, there are fewer major league players born on this day than any other (14).  The only active player born on this day is Stefan Crichton, a reliever for the Diamondbacks.  No players with connections to the Minnesota Twins were born on this day.

1991 Rewind: Game One Hundred Forty-four

TEXAS 4, MINNESOTA 2 IN TEXAS

Date:  Sunday, September 15.

Batting stars:  Randy Bush was 2-for-4.  Gene Larkin was 1-for-2 with a double and two walks.  Brian Harper was 1-for-2 with a walk.

Pitching star:  Mark Guthrie pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Jose Guzman pitched six innings, giving up two runs on four hits and five walks and striking out five.  Ruben Sierra was 2-for-3 with a double, a walk, and two RBIs.  Ivan Rodriguez was 2-for-4 with a double and two RBIs.

The game:  The Twins jumped to an early lead.  Larkin led off the game with a double, Chuck Knoblauch walked, and Shane Mack reached on a fielder's choice, loading the bases with none out.  The Twins did not totally cash that in, but a ground out and a sacrifice fly each plated a run to make it 2-0 Twins.

That was as good as it would get.  In the second, Monty Fariss had a one-out single, Mario Diaz walked, a wild pitch moved the runners up, and Rodriguez delivered a two-run double to tie the score.  The Twins put two on in the third and the fourth, but could not score.  The Rangers went ahead in the fifth when Brian Downing singled and scored from first on a Sierra double.

The Twins had men on second and third with one out in the sixth, but a pair of strikeouts ended the threat.  Texas added an insurance run in the seventh when Rodriguez led off with a single, was bunted to second, and scored on a Sierra single.  The Twins would again put two in the ninth, but a fly out ended the game.

WP:  Guzman (12-5).  LP:  Allan Anderson (5-9).  S:  Jeff Russell (28).

Notes:  Pedro Munoz was in left in place of Dan Gladden.  Larkin was in right field, with Mack moving to center and Kirby Puckett on the bench.  Larkin batted first.  Randy Bush was at DH in place of Chili DavisAl Newman was at third in place of Mike Pagliarulo and Scott Leius.

Again there were a lot of bench moves.  Jarvis Brown pinch-ran for Larkin in the seventh.  He stayed in the game in left field, with Munoz moving to right.  Paul Sorrento pinch-hit for Munoz in the eighth.  Gladden replaced him and went to left field, with Brown going to right.  Lenny Webster pinch-hit for Greg Gagne in the ninth.  Davis pinch-hit for Chuck Knoblauch in the ninth.

Harper raised his average to .312.  Mack was 0-for-5 and fell to .312.  Webster was 0-for-1 and was batting .381.  Terry Leach pitched a third of an inning and did not give up a run, dropping his ERA to 3.05.

Sorrento was 0-for-1 and was batting .174.

The Twins stranded ten runners and were 0-for-10 with men in scoring position.

The Twins had scored 13 runs in their last five games.  Four of them came in one extra inning.

The White Sox beat California 9-2, so they gained a game on the Twins.

Record:  The Twins were 86-58, in first place in the American League West, 7.5 games ahead of Chicago.

Boston won and Toronto lost, so the Blue Jays' lead in the East fell to 3.5 games.

February 28, 2020: Baby-mian Rhapsody

Ravenous Rick has been crazy chatty the past couple months, but it's actually starting to form into words lately. As he's a mama's boy, his first and most frequent word is "Momma". When he's mildly to intermediately upset, he'll moan it in such a way like, "Moooooommmaaaaaaaa", which my brain ALWAYS follows up with, "ooooOOOOOOOooooooo, DIDN'T MEAN TO MAKE YOU CRY!!!"

So, yeah, I've had Queen stuck in my head the past few weeks.