CALIFORNIA 8, MINNESOTA 2 IN MINNESOTA
Batting stars: Kent Hrbek was 1-for-3 with a home run (his twenty-eighth) and a walk. Roy Smalley was 1-for-3 with a home run (his sixth) and a walk.
Pitching star: George Frazier pitched two shutout innings, giving up only a walk.
Opposition stars: Ruppert Jones was 2-for-5 with a two-run homer, his seventh. Gus Polidor was 2-for-4 with a double, scoring once and driving in three. Kirk McCaskill struck out seven in 7.1 innings, giving up two runs on four hits and four walks.
The game: It was over pretty early. Polidor's two-run single put the Angels up 2-0 in the second, Devon White's RBI single made it 3-0 in the third, and a three-run fourth, aided by two wild pitches, put the Angels up 6-0. Hrbek had a solo home run in the fourth and Smalley had one in the seventh, but those solo home runs didn't hurt the Angels.
Of note: Al Newman again played second and batted second...Puckett was 0-for-4, dropping his average to .321...Twins starter Les Straker lasted just 3.2 innings, allowing six runs on six hits and three walks with one strikeout...The loss snapped a five-game winning streak for the Twins.
Record: The Twins were 62-53, in first place, 3.5 games ahead of California.
Player profile: Center fielder Ruppert Jones started out well, but never really improved. He was born in Dallas, went to high school in Berkeley, and was drafted by Kansas City in the third round in 1973. He reached the majors with the Royals on August 1 of 1976 and didn't do a lot. Left unprotected in the expansion draft, he was the first choice of the new Seattle Mariners. In 1977 he made the Mariners look good, hitting .263/.324/.454 with 24 homers and making the all-star team at the age of twenty-two. Big things were expected, but he never really progressed from that point. He had an off year in 1978, due at least partly to injuries, then had a year similar to 1977 in 1979. Still only twenty-four, he was traded to the Yankees, did poorly (again due at least partly to injuries), and was traded to San Diego after the season. He was their mostly-regular center fielder for the next three seasons, but often sat against left-handers, for good reason. He came back in 1982 to make his second all-star team, batting .283 with a .798 OPS. He went back down in 1983, became a free agent, and signed with Detroit. He did pretty well for the Tigers as a reserve outfielder, hitting twelve homers in 215 at-bats and posting an OPS of .862. He became a free agent again after the season, though, and signed with California, where he stayed from 1985-87. He was a semi-regular for them, not getting very high batting averages but hitting some homers and drawing some walks. 1987 would be his last year in the majors. He would play for two more seasons, splitting 1988 between Japan and AAA for the Rangers and spending all of 1989 in AAA for the Rangers. For his career, he batted .250/.330/.416 with 143 home runs in 4415 at-bats. He played for twelve seasons, and he wasn't a bad player by any means, but he never became what he was expected to be. At last report, Ruppert Jones was an insurance salesman in the San Diego area.