CALIFORNIA 5, MINNESOTA 3 IN CALIFORNIA

Date:  Friday, April 11.

Batting stars:  Tony Oliva was 1-for-4 with a home run.  Bob Allison was 1-for-4 with a home run.  George Mitterwald was 1-for-4 with a home run.

Pitching stars:  Joe Grzenda pitched a perfect inning.  Tom Hall struck out two in two shutout innings of relief, giving up two hits.  Charlie Walters pitched two shutout innings, giving up a hit and a walk.

Opposition stars:  Jay Johnstone was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer and a stolen base.  Aurelio Rodriguez was 2-for-4 with a double.  Tom Satriano was 1-for-3 with a two-run homer.  George Brunet pitched eight innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk and striking out six.

The game:  Mitterwald hit a one-out homer in the second to start the scoring.  The Angels took the lead in the bottom of the second on Satriano's two-run homer.  Johnston hit a two-run homer in the third to make it 4-1.

In the fourth came the only run of the game not brought in with a homer.  Roger Repoz walked, took third on a Rodriguez single, and scored on a wild pitch.

The Twins had men on first and second with one out in the fifth, but a ground out and a popup ended the threat.  They did not threaten again until the ninth, when Oliva and Allison led off with back-to-back homers.  That was the end of the day for Brunet.  Hoyt Wilhelm came on to retire the next three batters and end the game.

WP:  Brunet (1-0).  LP:  Jim Perry (0-1).  S:  Wilhelm (2).

Notes:  The Twins do win the division this year, don't they?  You'd never know it from their start.  Oddly, the scored exactly three runs in each of their first three games, all losses.

Allison made his first appearance of the year in this game, playing left field.  To the extent the Twins had a regular left fielder this year, he was it, but he started only fifty-two games there and was a part-time player.  Frank Quilici played third base, with Harmon Killebrew on first.  Rod Carew was given the day off, with Cesar Tovar at second.

Jim Perry made his first start of the season.  One could argue that it went all right except for the home runs, but the home runs made the difference.  He pitched just three innings, giving up five runs on five hits and a walk and striking out two.  Hall was used for two innings of relief just three days after making the opening day start, which makes his selection for that honor all the more puzzling.

Tom Tischinski made his major league debut in this game, pinch-hitting in the seventh and flying out to right field.  One assumes he was considered an excellent defensive catcher, because he never hit, even in the minors.  His AAA numbers are .235/.313/.356 and his major league numbers are .181/.296/.224.  Oddly, his best season was his last one, when he batted .286/.355/.481 in AAA Albuquerque at age twenty-nine.

Hoyt Wilhelm was forty-six years old at this point in his career.  He would play three more seasons before finally retiring.  Just looking at his numbers, it looks like he was still a somewhat effective pitcher, but his body just wouldn't hold up any more, as he threw only 45.1 innings in his last two seasons combined.

Record:  The Twins were 0-3, in sixth place in the AL West, two games behind California, Kansas City, Oakland, and Seattle.