MINNESOTA 9, TEXAS 7 IN TEXAS

Date:  Saturday, May 7.

Batting stars:  David McCarty was 3-for-5 with a triple and a double.  Scott Leius was 2-for-3 with a double, two walks, a stolen base, and three runs.  Shane Mack was 2-for-4 with a home run, a double, a walk, two runs, and two RBIs.  Chuck Knoblauch was 2-for-5 with two doubles, a walk, and two runs.

Pitching star:  Pat Mahomes pitched six innings, giving up two runs on five hits and three walks and striking out four.

Opposition stars:  Bill Ripken was 4-for-5 with two doubles.  Will Clark was 2-for-4 with a home run (his fourth), a walk, and two runs.  Doug Strange was 2-for-4.  Manny Lee was 2-for-5 with a double and two RBIs.  Juan Gonzalez was 2-for-5.

The game:  Doubles by Knoblauch and Mack put the Twins ahead 1-0 in the first inning.  In the second Leius doubled, went to third on a McCarty single, and scored on a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0.

The Rangers got on the board in the second when Clark walked, Gonzalez singled, a bunt moved them to second and third, and a ground out scored Clark.  Clark homered leading off the fourth to tie it, but Mack homered leading off the fifth to make it 3-2 Twins.  It went to 4-2 in the sixth when Leius walked, went to second on an error, and scored on McCarty's double.

The Twins appeared to take control in the seventh.  Alex Cole singled and Mack walked.  RBI singles by Pedro Munoz, Leius, and Matt Walbeck put the Twins up 7-2.  Texas scored in the bottom of the seventh on doubles by Ripken and Lee, but the Twins got the run back in the eighth when Knoblauch doubled, went to third on a bunt, and scored on a sacrifice fly.  The Rangers scored in the bottom of the eighth on singles by Gonzalez, Ripken, and Lee, but the Twins again got the run back in the ninth when Leius walked, stole second, and scored on an error.

The Twins had a comfortable 9-4 lead going to the bottom of the ninth.  Rick Aguilera came in, presumably just to get an inning of work.  it was work, all right.  Chris James opened the inning with a single-plus error and scored on a Jose Canseco single.  The next two batters were retired, but singles by Doug Strange, Junior Ortiz, and Ripken made the score 7-5 and brought the deciding run to the plate in Lee.  He grounded out to Aguilera, and the victory was finally preserved.

WP:  Mahomes (2-1).  LP:  Kenny Rogers (2-3).  S:  None.

Notes:  McCarty was at first base in place of Kent Hrbek, who was out due to injury.  Munoz was in right, with Kirby Puckett at DH and Dave Winfield out of the lineup.

Mack had missed the first month of the season, so this was only his fourth game.  He started with a bang, as he was batting .538 after this game.  He would finish at .333.  Cole was batting .340.  He would finish at .296.  Puckett was batting .331.  He would finish at .317.

Twins pitchers were not off to a particularly good start, or at least the ones used in this game were not.  After the game, Mahomes had an ERA of 6.12.  He would finish at 4.73.  Mark Guthrie was at 10.00.  He would finish at 6.14.  Carl Willis was at 7.40.  He would finish at 5.92.  Aguilera was at 6.94.  He would finish at 3.63.

Texas starter (and future Twin) Kenny Rogers pitched 6.1 innings, allowing six runs (five earned) on eight hits and four walks and striking out seven.

The Rangers had some thump in the middle of their lineup:  Canseco, Clark, and Gonzalez.  They also had Ivan Rodriguez, who wasn't exactly a banjo hitter.  Despite that, they were sixth in the league in home runs.  Clark hit just 13 homers that year, and Canseco just 19.  Canseco was the only one to hit more than twenty homers that season--he had thirty-one.

It should also be pointed out that this was a strike season.  The season ended on August 10, and there was no post-season.

This was the first game of a stretch in which the Twins won four in a row and eleven of twelve.

Record:  The Twins were 12-18, in fifth (last) place in the American League Central, five games behind Chicago.  They would finish 53-60, in fourth place, fourteen games behind Chicago.

The Rangers were 12-15, in first place (!) in the American League West, 1.5 games ahead of Seattle.  They would finish 52-62, in first place (!) in the American League West, one game ahead of Oakland.