KANSAS CITY 5, MINNESOTA 1 IN KANSAS CITY

Date:  Friday, June 19.

Batting stars:  Rod Carew was 3-for-4.  Jim Holt was 2-for-4.

Pitching stars:  Tom Hall struck out three in 1.2 scoreless innings, giving up a hit and a walk.  Steve Barber pitched two shutout innings, giving up a hit and a walk and striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Amos Otis was 3-for-4 with a double.  Bob Oliver was 2-for-4 with a double and two runs.  Joe Keough was 2-for-4.  Dick Drago pitched a complete game, giving up an unearned run on seven hits and one walk and striking out five.

The game:  There was no score until the third, when Bobby Floyd led off with a walk, went to second on a ground out, and scored on a Cookie Rojas single.  The Royals added two in the fourth:  Oliver and Keough led off with singles and Lou Piniella followed with an RBI double.  Ed Kirkpatrick was intentionally walked, loading the bases with still none out.  All Kansas City could get out of that was one more, on a ground out, but it put the Royals up 3-0.  Kansas City added two more in the fifth.  Otis hit a one-out single and scored on Oliver's double.  Oliver went to third on Keough's single and scored on a ground out to make it 5-0 Royals.

The Twins didn't mount a lot of threats.  They had a walk and a single with two out in the second.  They got a pair of one-out singles in the seventh.  Their lone run scored in the eighth when Cesar Tovar reached on a two-base error and scored on a Carew single.

WP:  Drago (5-4).

LP:  Bert Blyleven (2-2).

S:  None.

Notes:  Holt was in left in place of Brant Alyea.  Charlie Manuel pinch-hit for Hall in the seventh.  Paul Ratliff pinch-hit for George Mitterwald in the ninth.

Carew was batting .373.  Tony Oliva was 0-for-4 and was batting .324.  Harmon Killebrew was 0-for-4 and was batting .310.  Hall had an ERA of 2.30.  Barber had an ERA of 2.87.

Manuel was batting .176.  Manuel had been with the Twins all season and had appeared in twenty games, all as a pinch-hitter.  That's a tough way to try to succeed.  He was in his age twenty-six season.  I'm sure he was happy to be in the majors, but it sure wasn't a way to try to develop a young-ish player.

This was Blyleven's first poor start.  He allowed five runs in 4.1 innings, giving up seven hits and two walks and striking out two.

I don't remember that I've ever heard of Bobby Floyd.  He played in parts of seven major league seasons, from 1968-1974, but only once got as many as a hundred at-bats in a season (134 in 1972).  He was an infielder, playing 98 games at shortstop, 56 games at second base, and 48 games at third base.  He batted .219/.264/.266 in 425 at-bats.  1970 was his best season at bat, as he batted .311/.360/.400 in 45 at-bats.  He was tied with me in major league career home runs, as we both hit zero.  He did have a lengthy career as a minor league manager and coach.

Record:  The Twins were 38-20, in first place in the American League West, five games ahead of California.