MINNESOTA TWINS 5, TORONTO BLUE JAYS 4 IN MINNESOTA (10 INNINGS)

Date:  Friday, August 16, 1996.

Batting star:  Scott Stahoviak was 2-for-4 with a double and a walk.  Dave Hollins was 2-for-5 with a double.  Marty Cordova hit a two-run homer, his tenth.

Pitching stars:  Brad Radke pitched seven innings, giving up three runs on seven hits and a walk and striking out five.  Jose Parra pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Shawn Green was 3-for-4 with a double.  Alex Gonzalez was 2-for-4 with a home run (his eighth), a triple, and two runs.  Juan Guzman struck out seven in six innings, giving up two runs on six hits and two walks.

The game:  Doubles by Joe Carter and Shawn Green put Toronto up 1-0 in the first.  The Twins got a one-out double from Dave Hollins in the second, but he was stranded on second.  In the third, Alex Gonzalez tripled and scored on a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0 Blue Jays.  The Twins loaded the bases with two out in the third on a hit batsman, a Scott Stahoviak single, and another hit batsman, but a foul popup ended the inning.  In the fourth, Ed Sprague hit a one-out double and went to third on a Shawn Green single, but the score remained 2-0.

The Twins got on the board in the fourth when Roberto Kelly led off with a single, went to second on a ground out, and scored from second on a wild pitch.  Toronto got the run back when Alex Gonzalez led off the fifth with a home run, making the score 3-1.  In the bottom of the fifth, Paul Molitor hit a one-out single, Scott Stahoviak walked, the two pulled off a double steal, and a wild pitch again plated a run, cutting the lead to 3-2.

The Twins took their first lead in the seventh when Rich Becker walked and Marty Cordova hit a two-out two-run homer.  The Blue Jays tied it in the ninth when Shawn Green singled and scored from first on a John Olerud double.  The Twins went down in order in the bottom of the ninth, and we went to extra innings.

Carlos Delgado hit a one-out single in the tenth but was stranded on first.  Scott Stahoviak led off the bottom of the tenth with a double.  With one out, Dave Hollins doubled to bring in the deciding run for a Twins’ 5-4 victory.

WP:  Jose Parra (4-3).

LP:  Paul Quantrill (4-12).

S:  None.

Notes:  Matt Walbeck caught for the Twins.  He shared the position with Greg Myers, with Myers playing in more games, 90 to 61.  Roberto Kelly was in right.  He shared the position with Matt Lawton, with Lawton playing more games, 60 to 54.

Chuck Knoblauch was batting .354.  He would finish at .341.  Paul Molitor was batting .334.  He would finish at .341.  Roberto Kelly was batting .317.  He would finish at .323.  Marty Cordova was batting .311.  He would finish at .309.  Scott Stahoviak was batting .304.  He would finish at .284.

Otis Nixon was in center for Toronto, going 0-for-5.  He would play for the Twins in 1998.

The Twins were second in team batting average at .288, behind only Cleveland (.293).  However, they were eleventh in slugging percentage.  They were eighth in runs scored.  They had four .300 hitters, but the home run leader was Marty Cordova with sixteen.

Everyone knows Paul Molitor was a great hitter, but people may have forgotten what a great old hitter he was.  In 1996, at age thirty-nine, he led the league in hits with 225 and batted .341/.390/.468.  In his three seasons for the Twins, his age 39-41 seasons, he batted .312/.362/.432, for an OPS of .794.

Jose Parra would win only two more games in his major league career.  He would win one four days later, on August 20, and win another eight years later, in 2004 with the Mets.

Juan Guzman had a really good start to his career.  In his first three seasons, he was 40-11, 3.28.  He had another strong year in this season, 1996, when he went 11-8, 2.93, leading the league in ERA.  He was second to Chuck Knoblauch for rookie of the year in 1991, made the all-star team in 1992, and was seventh in Cy Young voting in 1993.  He couldn’t sustain it, and for his career he was 91-79, 4.08.  But for a few years, he was as good as anybody.

Record:  Toronto was 54-68, in fourth place in the AL East, seventeen games behind New York.  They would finish 74-88, in fourth place, eighteen games behind New York.

The Twins were 61-60, in third place in the AL Central, 11.5 games behind Cleveland.  They would finish 78-84, in fourth place, 21.5 games behind Cleveland

Random Record:  The Random Twins are 31-36 (.463).