NEW YORK YANKEES 2, MINNESOTA TWINS 1 IN NEW YORK
Date: Wednesday, June 10, 1970.
Batting star: Tony Oliva was 2-for-4 with a triple.
Pitching star: Bert Blyleven pitched seven innings, giving up two runs on seven hits and two walks and striking out three. Ron Perranoski pitched a scoreless inning, walking one and striking out one.
Opposition stars: Thurman Munson was 2-for-3 with a double. Horace Clarke was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer, his fourth. Mel Stottlemyre pitched a complete game, giving up one run on four hits and a walk and striking out seven.
The game: Neither team had more than one runner on base at a time until the fourth. The Twins didn’t do it then, either, but they scored anyway, as Oliva led off the inning with a triple and scored on a ground out. The Yankees took the lead in the fifth when Stottlemyre singled with two out and scored on Clarke’s two-run homer.
And that was it. There was only one hit after the fifth inning, a bunt single by Munson in the seventh. Other than Oliva, the Twins only once got a man past first base–Cesar Tovar hit a two-out double in the third.
WP: Stottlemyre (6-4).
LP: Blyleven (1-1).
S: None.
Notes: Rod Carew was at second. He would be injured a couple weeks later and miss almost the entire remainder of the season. Danny Thompson took his place at second, which was obviously a significant drop-off. Jim Holt was in left, a position he shared with Brant Alyea in 1970. Alyea had far superior offensive numbers, but was very streaky. His OPS by month was 1.257, .519, 631, 1.049, .715, 1.051. Holt, on the other had, was consistently mediocre.
Carew was batting .377. He would finish at .366. Oliva was batting .335. He would finish at .325. Harmon Killebrew was batting .313. He would finish at .271.
This was Blyleven’s second career start. His ERA was 1.93, but he was 1-1 due to getting a total of three runs of support over the two games. That would set the tone for much of his career. He would finish the season 10-9 with an ERA of 3.18. He would pitch 164 innings despite not making his debut until June. For comparison, Pablo Lopez led the Twins in innings pitched in 2024 with 185.1. It was a different era.
Perranoski had an ERA of 2.11. He would finish at 2.43.
We’ve done two games from 1970. Oliva was 2-for-4 with a triple in both of them. He would hit seven triples in 1970.
This was the last of four home runs Horace Clarke would hit in 1970. He hit a grand total of 27 in a ten-year career.
We’ve done two games from 1970, when the Twins won the division, and they lost both. We did one game from 1998, when they were terrible, and they won. I guess it proves the old saying that the best team loses sixty games and the worst team wins sixty games. Unless, of course, you’re the White Sox.
Record: The Yankees were 33-24, in second place in the AL East, 4.5 games behind Baltimore. They would finish 93-69, in second place, 15 games behind Baltimore.
The Twins were 34-17, in first place in the AL West, 2 games ahead of California. They would finish 98-64, in first place, 9 games ahead of Oakland.
Random Record: The Random Twins are 10-7 (.588).