1970 Rewind: Game One Hundred Fifty

MINNESOTA 5, CHICAGO 4 IN CHICAGO

Date:  Friday, September 18.

Batting stars:  Jim Holt was 2-for-3 with a triple, a walk, and two RBIs.  Tony Oliva was 2-for-4.  Cesar Tovar was 2-for-4.

Pitching stars:  Bill Zepp pitched 6.1 innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk and striking out three.  Ron Perranoski pitched 2.2 innings, giving up one run on three hits and no walks and striking out two.

Opposition stars:  Bobby Knoop was 2-for-3 with a walk.  Bill Melton was 1-for-3 with a home run (his twenty-ninth) and two runs.  Don Eddy struck out four in two shutout innings, giving up a walk.

The game:  The Twins came out firing in the first.  Tovar led off with a single, Leo Cardenas walked, and Oliva delivered an RBI single.  The next two batters went out, but Holt hit a two-run triple, giving the Twins a 3-0 lead before the White Sox came to bat.

Chicago did come to bat, of course, and in the second they got back in the game.  Melton was hit by a pitch and went to third on Syd O'Brien's one-out double.  A ground out scored one run and Knoop single home another, cutting the Twins lead to 3-2.  But the Twins got the runs back in the third.  With two out Rich Reese singled and Brant Alyea and Holt walked, loading the bases.  George Mitterwald then delivered a two-run single to make it 5-2 Twins.

The White Sox got one back in the bottom of the third when Luis Aparicio tripled and scored on a ground out.  They had two on with two out in the fourth but did not score.  They had a man on second with none out in the seventh but did not score.  Melton homered in the eighth to make it 5-4.  Chicago had the tying run on second with two out in the eighth and on first with two out in the ninth, but neither reached home plate and the Twins had the victory.

WP:  Zepp (9-4).

LP:  Bart Johnson (3-6).

S:  Perranoski (31).

Notes:  Holt was in center field, with Tovar moving to third base and Harmon Killebrew again out of the lineup.  I don't know if Killebrew was injured or ill or was simply given a little time off with the division nearly settled.  Danny Thompson was at second base in place of Rod Carew.  Steve Brye went to left field in the seventh in place of Alyea.

Oliva was batting .318.  Tovar was batting .302.  Perranoski had an ERA of 2.30.

Brye was 0-for-1 and was batting .143.

Johnson was the starter for Chicago.  He pitched seven innings, giving up five runs (three earned) on eight hits and four walks and struck out four.

This was the start of a nine-game road trip:  three in Chicago, three in Oakland, and three in Kansas City.  It appeared likely that the Twins would clinch on the road.

Oakland defeated California 3-2, so the Twins' magic number was only reduced by one.

Record:  The Twins were 90-60, in first place in the American League West, 7.5 games ahead of Oakland.  Their magic number was five.

4 thoughts on “1970 Rewind: Game One Hundred Fifty”

  1. Perranoski’s name was misspelled by the Twins’ equipment manager or a clubbie, it seems. But that W belonged there at one point:

    I didn’t realize Ron’s cousin was Stan Perzanowski, who pitched for the Twins in 1978. Perzanowski was fourteen years younger than Perranoski, but retained the original spelling of the family name. Perranoski’s SABR bio indicates his immigrant parents changed the spelling some years after he was born.

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