PITTSBURGH PIRATES 6, MINNESOTA TWINS 1 IN PITTSBURGH
Date: Friday, June 5, 1998
Batting stars: None.
Pitching star: Mike Morgan pitched six innings, giving up three runs on eight hits and a walk and striking out four.
Opposition stars: Jermaine Allensworth was 2-for-2 with a walk, two runs, and two RBIs. Kevin Young was 2-for-3 with a walk. Kevin Polcovich was 2-for-4 with a double and two RBIs. Jose Guillen was 2-for-4 with a double. Jason Kendall was 2-for-4. Jose Silva pitched a complete game, giving up one run on five hits and striking out seven. He threw 110 pitches.
The game: Pittsburgh got three singles in the first inning, but a double play and a pickoff kept them off the scoreboard. The Twins actually scored first, in the third inning. Morgan, batting because the game was being played in a National League park, hit a one-out single. With two out, Brent Gates and Paul Molitor singled, giving the Twins a 1-0 lead.
It stayed 1-0 until the fifth. Allensworth and Guillen led off with singles, putting men on first and third, and a force out tied the score. The Pirates went ahead in the sixth. With two out, Al Martin and Kendall singled and Young walked, loading the bases. Allensworth followed with a two-run single, making the scored 3-1 Pittsburgh.
The Pirates put the game out of reach in the eighth with another two-out rally. Young singled and Allensworth walked. Guillen hit a run-scoring double, Aramis Ramirez walked, and Polcovich hit a two-run single. Pittsburgh led 6-1, and that’s how it would end. The Twins got only one hit after the third inning, a single by Javier Valentin in the seventh.
WP: Silva (6-3).
LP: Morgan (2-2).
S: None.
Notes: Valentin was behind the plate in place of Terry Steinbach. As there was no DH, Molitor played first base, moving David Ortiz to the bench. Gates was at third in place of Ron Coomer.
Morgan was batting .500. He would finish at .625. Todd Walker was batting .347. He would finish at .316. Eddie Guardado had an ERA of 2.78. He would finish at 4.52.
Mike Morgan, 1998 notwithstanding, was not a particularly good batter. For his career, he hit .109/.132./.119 in 497 at-bats. This was his only season with the Twins, and it was only a partial season, as he was traded to the Cubs on August 25 for a player to be named later, who turned out to be named Scott Downs.
I really thought Jose Guillen was going to be a star. It never happened, although he had a solid major league career. He batted .267 with 14 home runs as a 21-year-old rookie in 1997, finishing seventh in Rookie of the Year voting. He had an incredibly similar year in 1998: in 1997 he batted .267/.300/.412; in 1998 he batted .267/.298/.414, again with 14 home runs. He bounced around after that, going to Tampa Bay in 1999, then to Arizona and Cincinnati in 2002. He had his best year for Cincinnati in 2003, batting .337 with 23 home runs before being traded to Oakland at the July deadline. He had solid years for Anaheim and Washington in 2004 and 2005, respectively, and another good year for Seattle in 2007. For his career, he batted .270/.321/.440 with 214 home runs in fourteen major league seasons.
Record: Pittsburgh was 30-30, in fourth place in the NL Central, 5.5 games behind the Cubs and Houston. They finished 69-93, in sixth (last) place, 33 games behind Houston.
The Twins were 26-32, in second place in the AL Central, 8.5 games behind Cleveland. They would finish 70-92, in fourth place, 19 games ahead of Cleveland.
Random Record: The Random Twins are 14-12 (.538)