MINNESOTA 6, DETROIT 2 IN DETROIT
Date: Friday, May 9.
Batting stars: Graig Nettles was 3-for-4 with a double. Leo Cardenas was 2-for-3 with a double. Rod Carew was 1-for-3 with two walks. Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-5 with a two-run homer, his eighth.
Pitching stars: Dean Chance struck out seven in 6.2 innings, giving up two runs on three hits and three walks. Bob Miller pitched 1.2 scoreless innings, giving up a hit and a walk and striking out one.
Opposition stars: Jim Northrup was 1-for-2 with a two-run homer, his third. John Hiller struck out four in 2.2 scoreless innings, giving up a hit and a walk.
The game: The Tigers put men on first and third with one out in the first, but a double play ended the inning. In the second, the Twins had men on first and third with one out, but Nettles was caught stealing home on a 2-3-2 putout to end the threat. The Twins broke through in the third when Carew scored from first on a two-out double by Tony Oliva.
The Twins added to their lead in the fourth. Nettles singled, Cardenas doubled, and Johnny Roseboro was intentionally walked, loading the bases with one out. Chance singled to center to bring home a run, and with two out Carew drew a walk to force home a run and make it 3-0.
Meanwhile, Chance had retired twelve men in a row before Bill Freehan doubled with two out in the fifth. He reached third on a wild pitch but went no farther. The Tigers got back into in the seventh, however. Norm Cash drew a walk and Northrup hit a two-run homer to cut the Twins' lead to 3-2. After a walk to Freehan, Miller came in to retire pinch-hitter Gates Brown on a ground out to end the inning.
The Twins got an insurance run in the eighth when Rich Reese singled, was bunted to second, and scored on a Roseboro single. They put it out of reach when Killebrew hit a two-out two-run homer in the ninth. Detroit did put men on first and second with one out in the bottom of the ninth, but Ron Perranoski came in to retire Northrup and Freehan to end the game.
WP: Chance (3-0). LP: Earl Wilson (1-4). S: Perranoski (6).
Notes: Carew was batting .393. Nettles raised his average to .321. Roseboro was 1-for-3 with a walk and was also at .321. Cardenas was batting .316. Oliva was 1-for-4 with a walk and was batting .311. Killebrew was batting .307.
Chance lowered his ERA to 1.46. Perranoski lowered his to 0.36.
Chance would make just one more start and two relief appearances in May before going on the disabled list until August 1. His RBI single was a rare event--not only was it his only RBI of the season, it was his only hit of the season. He batted .042 for the year, and that was not the worst batting average of his career. He batted .026 in 1966 and .033 in 1967. His best was .150 in 1963. For his career, he batted .066/.113/.069. He drew thirty walks in his career, which shows that sometimes just the simple act of throwing a strike is more than a pitcher can manage. He struck out 420 times in his 662 career at-bats. I assume that, on those occasions when the possibility of using a designated hitter was raised, he was one of its most ardent proponents.
The DH came along too late to help Gates Brown, too. He was, in theory, and outfielder, but he only had one season in which he saw semi-regular play there (1964). He was primarily a pinch-hitter, and a good one. For his career, he batted .251/.356/.421 in exactly five hundred plate appearances as a pinch-hitter. In 1968, in forty-eight pinch-hitting appearances, he batted ,450/.542/.850, for an astounding OPS of 1.357. In 1972, in thirty-one pitch-hitting appearances, he batted .346/.452/.692, for an OPS of 1.144. He was still around in 1973, when the DH came in, but by then he was thirty-four, and as he had never kept himself in great shape, he was able to only bat .236/.328/.366. If there was a pinch-hitters Hall of Fame, though, he'd be in the first group selected.
Wilson pitched just 3.1 innings, allowing three runs on six hits and three walks and striking out two.
This would be the last multi-hit game for Nettles until August 8. His average went all the way down to .214 over that period. As his batting declined, so did his playing time as others, primarily Bob Allison, were given time in left field.
Record: The Twins were 18-8, in first place, leading Oakland by 1.5 games in the American League West.