TEXAS 3, MINNESOTA 0 IN TEXAS
Date: Saturday, September 14.
Batting stars: Shane Mack was 2-for-3. Chuck Knoblauch was 2-for-4.
Pitching star: Carl Willis struck out three in three shutout innings, giving up a hit and a walk.
Opposition stars: Oil Can Boyd pitched seven shutout innings, giving up five hits and no walks and striking out three. Brian Downing was 3-for-4 with a double. Ruben Sierra was 2-for-4. Mario Diaz was 2-for-4.
The game: There was no score until the fourth. Sierra and Kevin Reimer led off with singles. The next two batters went out, but Diaz singled to load the bases and Ivan Rodriguez delivered a two-run single to make it 2-0 Rangers. They added another run in the fifth when Downing singled, went to third on a Rafael Palmeiro double, and scored on a ground out.
And that was it for the scoring. The Twins did not get a hit until the fourth, when Knoblauch got a one-out single. The closest the Twins came to scoring was the fifth. Brian Harper and Mack had one-out singles and a fly ball moved them to second and third, but Al Newman grounded out to end the inning. The Twins did not advance a man past first after that.
WP: Boyd (8-13). LP: Tom Edens (1-2). S: Kenny Rogers (5).
Notes: Al Newman was at shortstop in place of Greg Gagne. Scott Leius pinch-hit for Kent Hrbek in the ninth.
Kirby Puckett was 0-for-4 to drop his average to .326. Mack raised his average to .316. Harper was 1-for-4 and was batting .311. Willis' ERA fell to 2.35.
Edens started and pitched five innings, giving up three runs on nine hits and two walks and striking out four. His ERA was 5.85.
It may seem strange to pinch-hit Leius for Hrbek, but in 1991 Leius batted .305 with an OPS of .872 against left-handers, while Hrbek batted .281 with an OPS of .797 against them.
I had completely forgotten that Oil Can Boyd pitched for Texas. He was traded there from Montreal in July of 1991. This was the only season he would pitch for them and it was his last season in the majors. This was also the last good game he would pitch in his career. As a Ranger, he was 2-7, 6.68, 1.58 WHIP. For the season he was 8-15, 4.59, 1.39 WHIP. He had pitched well for the Expos, but when he did poorly in Texas he did not get another chance. Well, he did pitch in independent ball from 1994-1997 and again in 2005, but that was it.
The Twins had scored just eleven runs in their last four games, with four of them coming in the tenth inning of yesterday's game.
Chicago lost to California 3-2 in ten innings, again missing a chance to gain ground.
Record: The Twins were 86-57, in first place in the American League West, 8.5 games ahead of Chicago.
In the East, Toronto defeated Oakland 6-0 and Boston lost to New York 3-1, so the Blue Jays now led by 4.5 games.