BOSTON 6, MINNESOTA 1 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Saturday, May 16.

Batting stars:  Gary Gaetti was 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.  Kirby Puckett was 2-for-4 with a run.

Pitching stars:  None.

Opposition stars:  Roger Clemens pitched a complete game, giving up one run on eight hits and three walks with seven strikeouts.  Wade Boggs was 1-for-3 with a two-run homer (his sixth) and a walk, scoring twice.  Bill Buckner was 1-for-4 with a three-run homer.

The game:  Twins starter Bert Blyleven left a pitch up to Wade Boggs, who hit over the fence for a two-run homer in the first inning.  The score stayed 2-0 until the ninth, when a double, a walk, and a Don Baylor double made it 3-0 with one out.  Jeff Reardon then replaced Blyleven and struck out the first batter he faced but gave up a three-run homer to Bill Buckner to make it 6-0.  The Twins put together three singles in the ninth to avoid the shutout.  A walk loaded the bases with one out, but Steve Lombardozzi grounded into a double play to end the game.

Of note:  Puckett raised his average to .331...Blyleven deserved better, but his line reads 8.1 innings, five runs, five hits, two walks, and six strikeouts.  After the Boggs homer he gave up only one more hit, a single, until the ninth.

Record:  The Twins were 18-18, in fourth place, 2.5 games behind Kansas City.

Notes:  Al Newman started at shortstop in place of Greg Gagne...Randy Bush started in right field, with Tom Brunansky moving to left and Dan Gladden to the bench...From this point of the season, the only division rivals to have winning records would be Oakland and the White Sox, and in each case it was only one game over .500.

Player profile:  It's not really a profile, because I doubt I can tell you much about Wade Boggs that you don't know, but I did want to point this out.  Boggs hit twenty-four home runs in 1987.  He had hit only thirty-two in his major league career from 1982-1986.  He would hit twenty-two from 1988-1991.  His next highest season total came in 1994, when he hit eleven.  He would hit 118 in an eighteen year career, meaning that his average was six and a half and he hit more than twenty percent of his career home runs in 1987.