MINNESOTA 3, NEW YORK 1 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Friday, September 6.

Batting star:  Chuck Knoblauch was 2-for-4 with a triple and a double.

Pitching stars:  Kevin Tapani pitched eight innings, giving up one run on seven hits and no walks and striking out six.  Rick Aguilera struck out two in a perfect inning.

Opposition star:  Wade Taylor pitched 7.1 innings, giving up three runs on six hits and three walks and striking out six.

The game:  The Yankees got a pair of one-out singles in the first, but a popup and a ground out ended the inning.  They scored their run in the third.  A Pat Kelly single and a Bernie Williams double put men on second and third with one out.  Steve Sax then had an RBI fielder's choice, with Williams thrown out trying to go to third.

The Twins had only one hit through three innings.  In the fourth, however, Knoblauch led off with a triple and scored on a Kirby Puckett double.  Kent Hrbek walked, and with one out Brian Harper had an RBI single to put the Twins ahead.  A run-scoring ground out made it 3-1 Twins.

And that was it for the scoring.  New York had just two hits after that, both singles.  Neither man got past first base.

WP:  Tapani (14-7).  LP:  Taylor (7-8).  S:  Aguilera (38).

Notes:  Scott Leius was at shortstop in place of Greg Gagne, with Mike Pagliarulo at third.  Paul Sorrento pinch-hit for Leius in the seventh, with Gagne coming in to play short.

Puckett was 1-for-4 and was batting .331.  Harper was 1-for-3 and was batting .320.  Shane Mack was 1-for-3 and was batting .308.  Tapani lowered his ERA to 2.82.  Aguilera lowered his ERA to 2.24.

This was the one major league season of Wade Taylor's career.  It was not a very good one--he went 7-12, 6.27, 1.69 WHIP in 23 games (22 starts).  He did have a few good starts--three of his starts topped the game score of 57 that he had in this game.  He obviously did not have enough of them, though.  He had injury trouble after this season.  He pitched just thirteen minor league innings in 1992 and thirty in 1993, and then was done.  He pitched pretty well in AAA, and since he was only twenty-five in 1991 he might have figured it out had he stayed healthy, but unfortunately for him, he didn't.  He was a major league scout until 2016, when he lost his job due to salary cutbacks.  He was working for UPS at last report.

I apologize, but the notes section is probably going to be short for a while.  Too much other stuff going on.

The White Sox defeated Texas 11-6, so they did not lose any more ground to the Twins.

Record:  The Twins were 81-54, in first place in the American League West, 7.5 games ahead of Chicago.