Monthly Archives: February 2020

Keeping Track

1991 Rewind: Game One Hundred Thirty-six

MINNESOTA 3, NEW YORK 2 IN MINNESOTA (10 INNINGS)

Date:  Saturday, September 7.

Batting stars:  Chuck Knoblauch was 3-for-5.  Chili Davis was 2-for-4 with two doubles.  Gene Larkin was 2-for-4 with a double.  Kirby Puckett was 2-for-4 with two runs.

Pitching stars:  Jack Morris pitched 8.2 innings, giving up two runs on four hits and three walks and striking out five.  Carl Willis struck out two in a perfect inning.

Opposition stars:  Pascual Perez pitched six innings, giving up one run on seven hits and a walk and striking out two.  Matt Nokes was 2-for-4 with two doubles.

The game:  The Yankees took the lead in the first inning.  Leadoff batter Bernie Williams walked, stole second, was bunted to third, and scored on a two-out double by Nokes to make it 1-0.  The Twins put two on with one out in the bottom of the first, but Kent Hrbek hit into a double play.  Davis led off the second with a double, but was thrown out at third trying to advance on a short passed ball.  The Twins put two on with two out in the third but again could not score.

The Twins finally broke through in the sixth.  Larkin led off with a double and scored on Knoblauch's single, tying it 1-1.  The Twins again missed a chance, though, as Puckett reached on an error to put two on with none out and nothing came of it.

The Twins took the lead in the eighth.  Puckett hit a one-out single, went to second on a ground out, and scored on a Davis double.  The Yankees came right back to tie it in the ninth.  Their first two batters went out, but Nokes doubled.  Morris came out of the game and Rick Aguilera came in, but he gave up an RBI single to Roberto Kelly, tying the score at two and sending the game to extra innings.

In the tenth, Puckett again hit a one-out single.  He again went to second on a ground out.  Pedro Munoz pinch-hit and delivered a game-winning single, giving the Twins the victory.

WP:  Carl Willis (8-3).  LP:  Lee Guetterman (3-3).  S:  None.

Notes:  Dan Gladden was out of the starting lineup.  Shane Mack went to left, with Larkin playing right.  Larkin batted leadoff.

The Twins made extensive use of the bench.  Paul Sorrento pinch-hit for Greg Gagne in the seventh.  Al Newman then came in to play shortstop.  Jarvis Brown pinch-ran for Davis in the eighth.  He was officially the DH at that point, but Munoz pinch-hit for him when his spot in the order came up in the tenth.  Gladden came in for defense at the start of the ninth.  He went to left field, with Mack moving to right.  Scott Leius pinch-hit for Mike Pagliarulo in the ninth and stayed in the game at third base.

Puckett raised his average to .332.  Brian Harper was 0-for-4 and was batting .316.  Mack was 1-for-4 and was batting .308.

Aguilera officially pitched a third on an inning and was not charged with a run, lowering his ERA to 2.23.  Willis' ERA fell to 2.26.

Morris threw just 98 pitches in his 8.2 innings.

Steve Howe pitched a scoreless inning.  This was his first year with the Yankees, and it was a really good one--3-1, 1.68, 3 saves, 0.95 WHIP.  This, however, would be the last game he would pitch for the  Yankees this season.  I could not quickly find whether he was injured or if this was one of the numerous times he got into trouble.  He would go on to pitch very well in 1992, struggle in 1993, and pitch very well again in 1994, which was his last good season.

The White Sox defeated Texas 11-6, so the distance between them and the Twins remained the same.

Record:  The Twins were 82-54, in first place in the American League West, 7.5 games ahead of Chicago.

Keeping Track

1991 Rewind: Game One Hundred Thirty-five

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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.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–February 20

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Sam Rice (1890)
John Wesley Donaldson (1892)
Muddy Ruel (1896)
Pete Monahan (1902)
Tommy Henrich (1913)
Frankie Gustine (1920)
Jim Wilson (1922)
Roy Face (1928)
Shigeo Nagashima (1936)
Clyde Wright (1941)
Bill Gullickson (1959)
Shane Spencer (1972)
Livan Hernandez (1975)
Ryan Langerhans (1980)
Justin Verlander (1983)
Jose Morales (1983)
Brian McCann (1984)
Johnny Field (1992)

John Wesley Donaldson pitched in the Negro Leagues and averaged nearly twenty strikeouts per game for the All Nations team in the 1910s.  He pitched three consecutive no-hitters in 1913.

Pete Monahan played in the minors from 1921-1940, batting .301 and collecting 2,462 hits, but never played in the major leagues.

Third baseman Shigeo Nagashima played for the Yomiuri Giants from 1958-1974 and is considered by some to be the greatest player in the history of Japanese baseball.

We would also like to wish a happy birthday to CarterHayes' daughter.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–February 20 →

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–February 19

John Morrill (1855)
Dick Siebert (1912)
Hub Kittle (1917)
Russ Nixon (1935)
Dave Niehaus (1935)
Jackie Moore (1939)
Walt Jocketty (1951)
Dave Stewart (1957)
Keith Atherton (1959)
Alvaro Espinoza (1962)
Miguel Batista (1971)
Juan Diaz (1974)
Chris Stewart (1982)

Hub Kittle’s baseball career spanned 68 years.  In 1980, he became the oldest player to appear in organized baseball, pitching a perfect inning for AAA Springfield on August 27 at age 63½.

Jackie Moore is a long-time major league coach and minor league manager.  He also was the manager of the Oakland Athletics from 1984-86,

Walt Jocketty was the general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals from 1995-2007 and was the general manager of the Cincinnati Reds from 2008-2015, when he became president of baseball operations.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–February 19 →

Keeping Track

1991 Rewind: Game One Hundred Thirty-four

CLEVELAND 8, MINNESOTA 4 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Wednesday, September 4.

Batting stars:  Kirby Puckett was 2-for-4 with a double.  Chili Davis was 2-for-4.  Dan Gladden was 2-for-5.  Kent Hrbek was 1-for-4 with a three-run homer, his sixteenth.

Pitching stars:  Allan Anderson pitched two shutout innings, giving up two hits and striking out one.  Mark Guthrie struck out three in a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Alex Cole was 4-for-5 with a double.  Albert Belle was 2-for-5 with a home run (his twenty-fifth), a double, and five RBIs.  Willie Blair pitched eight innings, giving up three runs on eight hits and one walk and striking out one.

The game:  With one out in the first Chuck Knoblauch and Puckett singled and Hrbek followed with a three-run homer to put the Twins ahead 3-0.  That was as good as it got for them.  In the third, a walk, an error, and a bunt single loaded the bases for the Indians with none out.  A force out followed, but Carlos Baerga was hit by a pitch to force in a run and Belle followed with a bases-clearing double to give Cleveland a 4-3 lead.

The Indians added a run in the fourth when Jim Thome led off with a single, went to third on a pair of productive outs, and scored on Cole's single.  In the fifth Baerga led off with a single and Belle hit a two-run homer to make the score 7-3.  In the seventh, singles by Jose Gonzalez, Carlos Martinez, and Thome brought home another run to make it 8-3.

Meanwhile, the Twins did not get a man past first base in innings two through seven.  Puckett hit a two-out double in the eighth.  The Twins tried to get back into it in the ninth.  Singles by Davis and Brian Harper and a walk to Shane Mack loaded the bases with none out.  Mike Pagliarulo then hit into a double play, scoring a run but pretty much taking the Twins out of the inning.

WP:  Blair (2-2).  LP:  David West (4-4).  S:  Shawn Hillegas (7).

Notes:  The Twins used their standard lineup.  Paul Sorrento pinch-hit for Greg Gagne in the seventh.  Al Newman then went in to play shortstop.  Gene Larkin pinch-hit for Newman in the ninth.

Puckett raised his average to .331.  Harper was 1-for-4 and was batting .320.  Mack was 0-for-2 with two walks and was batting .308.

West started for the Twins.  He pitched well for two innings.  His line was 2.1 innings, four runs (three earned), two hits, two walks, and two strikeouts.  It seems like a pretty quick hook--again, the sequence in the third was walk, error, bunt single, ground out, hit batsman, double.  Only one hard-hit ball, although obviously the walk and the hit batsman weren't helpful.  Still, with a big lead in the division, Tom Kelly might have given West more of a chance to work out of trouble.  As it happened, the Twins burned through five relievers, including Carl Willis and Terry Leach, in a game they didn't win anyway.

Willis allowed two runs in one inning to raise his ERA to 2.29.  Leach gave up a run in one inning to make his ERA 2.88.

Tom Edens gave up a run in 1.2 innings to raise his ERA to 7.20.

People have forgotten what an awesome hitter Albert Belle was.  He had a reputation for being a jerk, and he way have been, but the jerk could hit.  1991 was his first season as a regular, and it was the first of ten consecutive seasons in which he hit twenty-three or more home runs.  He had eight consecutive seasons in which he hit thirty homers or more, and in three of them he hit forty-eight or more.  He had an OPS of over 1.000 four times and an OPS of over .900 two more times.  Injuries forced him to retire in 2000, after his age-thirty-three season, but his career numbers were .295/.369/.564 with 381 home runs in basically ten seasons.  Whatever else he may have been, Albert Belle was a great batter.

This was the last save of Shawn Hillegas' career.  He had ten total, seven of them in 1991.  Steve Olin is listed as the closer, but he had just seventeen saves, and Hillegas and Dave Otto each had seven.  He was not a particularly good pitcher:  in 181 major league games (62 starts) he was 24-38, 4.61, 1.47 WHIP.  He was substantially better as a reliever, although not a star or anything:  9-12, 3.77, 1.37 WHIP.  Given his lack of success as a starter, I don't know why teams kept giving him starts rather than putting him in the bullpen, but they did.  There was obviously something about him that convinced teams he could be a successful starting pitcher, even though the stats provide no evidence to back it up.

Chicago defeated Kansas City 4-1 and Oakland lost to Milwaukee 2-0, so the White Sox moved back into second place.

Record:  The Twins were 80-54, in first place in the American League West, eight games ahead of Chicago.

In the East, Toronto took a three game lead over Detroit.