MINNESOTA 10, KANSAS CITY 4 IN KANSAS CITY

Date:  Monday, September 9.

Batting stars:  Greg Gagne was 3-for-4 with a double.  Chuck Knoblauch was 3-for-5 with a double.  Brian Harper was 2-for-4.  Shane Mack was 2-for-5 with two stolen bases (his eighth and ninth), two runs, and two RBIs.  Chili Davis was 2-for-5 with two runs.  Lenny Webster was 1-for-1 with a two-run homer, his third.

Pitching stars:  Tom Edens struck out five in five innings, giving up two runs on five hits and three walks.  Gary Wayne pitched 3.1 scoreless innings, giving up one hit and striking out three.

Opposition star:  Brian McRae was 3-for-4 with a triple.

The game:  It was close most of the way.  In the first, McRae tripled and George Brett singled to give the Royals a 1-0 lead.  In the second Brent Mayne led off with a double and scored on a pair of ground outs to make it 2-0.

The Twins got it going in the fifth.  Mack singled and Gene Larkin reached on an error.  With one out, Gagne had an RBI single and Dan Gladden delivered a two-run triple.  Knoblauch then singled in a run to make the score 4-2 Minnesota.  In the sixth, Davis and Harper singled and an RBI ground out followed, increasing the Twins lead to 5-2.

Kansas City came back in the bottom of the sixth.  Bill Pecota led off with a walk, but the next two men went out.  Then, however, Jim Eisenreich, Kirk Gibson, and McRae all singled, plating two runs and cutting the Twins' lead to 5-4.

That was as close as they would come, though, and the Twins put it away in the last two innings.  In the eighth, Harper singled and pinch-runner Jarvis Brown scored from first on a Mack single.  Mack then stole second and scored on a Gagne single to make it 7-4.  In the ninth Knoblauch led off with a double, went to third on a wild pitch, and scored on a sacrifice fly.  Then Davis singled and Webster hit a two-run homer to bring the final score to 10-4.

WP:  Edens (1-1).  LP:  Mike Boddicker (11-11).  S:  Wayne (1).

Notes:  Larkin was at first base in place of Kent Hrbek.  Hrbek pinch-ran for Larkin in the fifth and stayed in the game at first base.  Paul Sorrento pinch-hit for Hrbek in the eighth and stayed in the game at first base.  Brown pinch-ran for Harper in the eighth and was replaced by Webster, who went behind the plate.

Puckett was 0-for-3 and was batting .328.  Harper raised his average to .318.  Mack raised his average to .311.  Webster was now batting .368.  Carl Willis was charged with two runs in two-thirds of an inning to raise his ERA to 2.48.

Sorrento was 0-for-1 to drop his average to .158.  Edens lowered his ERA to 6.00.

Boddicker pitched 5.1 innings, allowing five runs (four earned) on eight hits and no walks and striking out three.  This was Boddicker's last full year as a starter.  He wasn't bad, going 12-12, 4.08, 1.37 WHIP.  He would make eight starts and twenty-one relief appearances for the Royals in 1992 and ten starts for Milwaukee in 1993.

This was one of four career saves for Wayne.  He had one in each of 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1993.

Hrbek was being given some time off, presumably due to a minor injury.  This was the only game he would play between September 7 and September 12, and he didn't finish this one.  Larkin presumably came out of the game due to a minor injury as well.  He would not start a game again until September 15, although he would make two pinch-hitting appearances in that time.

The White Sox defeated Oakland 7-1, so the distance between them and the Twins remained the same.

Record:  The Twins were 84-54, in first place in the American League West, 8.5 games ahead of Chicago.