MINNESOTA 8, SEATTLE 5 IN SEATTLE

Date:  Sunday, April 12.

Batting stars:  Kirby Puckett was 3-for-4 with a home run (his fourth), a triple, and a stolen base, scoring twice and driving in three.  Dan Gladden was 2-for-5 with a double and a stolen base.  Tim Laudner was 1-for-4 with a two-run homer.

Pitching star:  Bert Blyleven pitched six innings, giving up three runs on seven hits and two walks with two strikeouts.

Opposition stars:  Ken Phelps was 3-for-4 with two home runs (his second and third), scoring three times.  Alvin Davis was 2-for-4 with a double, scoring once and driving in two.

The game:  In the first inning, Puckett hit a two-run triple and scored on a balk, as the Twins jumped on Mark Langston for a 3-0 lead.  It was 5-0 half-way through, but the Mariners hung around, and it was 6-3 through seven.  Laudner hit a two-run homer in the top of the eighth to make it 8-3, but Davis' two-run double cut it to 8-5 in the bottom of the eighth.  Juan Berenguer, who came in to start the seventh, settled down after that and retired the final five Mariners, four by strikeout.

Of note:  Gladden was making his first start of the season...This was Puckett's third three-hit game of the young season.  He was batting .520 (13-for 25)...Blyleven apparently left a couple of pitches up to Phelps.  But they were both solo home runs, so they didn't hurt him.

Record:  The Twins were 5-1, in first place by one game over California.

Notes:  Ken Phelps had four seasons in which he played over a hundred games.  In those four seasons, he hit 99 home runs and had an OPS well over .900.  He had a heck of a time getting teams to play him that much, though.  In 1979 he hit 20 homers with an OPS of .885 in Omaha.  In 1980 he hit 23 homers there with an OPS of .988.  The Royals saw fit to give him exactly four major league at-bats in those two seasons.  Yes, the Royals had some pretty good teams back then, but they also gave nearly two hundred games at first base to the immortal Pete LaCock.  It took a trade to Seattle to give him substantial playing time at age twenty-nine, which he took advantage of.  The Mariners eventually traded him to the Yankees for Jay Buhner, which worked out pretty well for them.  The Yankees didn't give Phelps a ton of playing time, either, but they at least had the excuse of having Don Mattingly at first base.  Phelps bounced around his last few years.  He still had a decent career, but one wonders what he might have done had the Royals not made him waste some prime years in Omaha.