MINNESOTA 13, TORONTO 9 IN TORONTO
Date: Saturday, July 25.
Batting stars: Gary Gaetti was 2-for-4 with a home run (his nineteenth), a walk, and a stolen base (his sixth), scoring twice and driving in four. Gene Larkin was 2-for-4 with a home run (his third) and a walk, scoring twice and driving in three. Greg Gagne was 2-for-4 with a double, a walk, and a stolen base (his sixth), scoring once and driving in two.
Pitching stars: Joe Niekro pitched 1.1 scoreless innings of relief, giving up one hit while striking out one. Jeff Reardon pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.
Opposition stars: Tony Fernandez was 3-for-4 with a double and two walks, scoring once and driving in one. Garth Iorg was 2-for-5 with a two-run homer (his fifth) and double, scoring twice. Jesse Barfield was 2-for-4 with a double and a walk, scoring once and driving in one.
The game: Toronto scored four in the third, three of them coming on a home run by Fred McGriff, but the Twins tied it with four of their own in the fourth, three of them coming on a home run by Gaetti. Toronto got the lead back in the bottom of the fourth, getting RBI doubles by Fernandez and Rance Mulliniks. The Twins answered with seven in the sixth. Larkin led off with a home run, but for the rest of the inning the single was their weapon of choice, as they got five of them. A couple of walks and an error didn't hurt, either. The lead was cut to 11-9 in the seventh, as Iorg hit a two-run homer and Kelly Gruber hit a solo shot. The Twins got single runs in the eighth and ninth to take control of the game again.
Of note: Kirby Puckett was 2-for-5 with a triple and two runs and was batting .325...Steve Lombardozzi was 2-for-5 with a double and a stolen base (his third), scoring twice and driving in one...Mark Davidson started in center field and batted second, with Puckett at DH...Larkin started at first, with Kent Hrbek out of the lineup...The Twins stole bases. In addition to the ones mentioned above, Davidson stole his seventh and Randy Bush, who entered the game as a pinch-hitter for Davidson in the sixth, stole his sixth...Les Straker pitched only three innings, allowing six runs on six hits and four walks with one strikeout...Toronto starter John Cerutti didn't last much longer, going 3.1 innings and allowing four runs on two hits and four walks with two strikeouts.
Record: The Twins were 54-45, in first place, two games ahead of Oakland.
Player profile: Garth Iorg had a longer career than you may remember. An eighth-round draft choice of the Yankees in 1973, he had played in AA in 1976 and was left unprotected in the expansion draft. He batted .294 in AAA in 1977 and on the strength of that was on the Blue Jays' opening day roster in 1978. He didn't stay long, as he batted .163 in 49 at-bats and was back in AAA by May. He never did get on track in 1978, but he produced good AAA batting averages, although with no power, in 1979, and the start of 1980, getting to the big leagues to stay in late May of the latter year. He was a part-time player for the Blue Jays from then through 1987, playing mostly second and third. He was never quite an everyday player, but he would play in 120-140 games a season and get 250-400 at-bats. His only really good season was 1985, when he batted .313/.358/.469 in 288 at-bats. He had a couple of other years when he had a good batting average, but he drew so few walks and had so little power that he still wasn't much of an offensive contributor. He stayed in baseball as a minor league coach and manager and as a major league coach through 2014. For his career he batted .258/.292/.347. Still, he played in 931 big league games and had 2450 at-bats, and that's a pretty decent career.