MINNESOTA 10, OAKLAND 4 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Friday, July 4.
Batting stars: Rod Carew was 3-for-5 with a home run (his sixth) and two doubles, scoring twice and driving in three. Tony Oliva was 3-for-5 with two doubles, scoring twice and driving in two. Ted Uhlaender was 3-for-5 with two doubles, scoring three times. Harmon Killebrew was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer, his twentieth, and a walk. Rich Reese was 2-for-4 with a walk. Cesar Tovar was 2-for-4 with two stolen bases, his twelfth and thirteenth. Leo Cardenas was 1-for-4 with a home run, his fifth.
Pitching star: Bob Miller pitched a complete game, giving up four runs on eight hits and two walks and striking out one.
Opposition stars: Rick Monday was 2-for-4 with a three-run homer, his seventh. Sal Bando was 2-for-3. George Lauzerique pitched a perfect inning.
The game: The Twins scored three in the first inning. Oddly, Carew, who had a big day, was the only one of the first four batters to make an out. Uhlaender doubled, Oliva doubled, and Killebrew hit a two-run homer to make the score 3-0.
Oakland had a man on third with none out in the second but did not score. The Twins scored in the third on a pair of doubles, this time by Carew and Oliva, to increase their lead to 4-0.
The Twins really took control in the fourth. Cardenas led off with a home run. The next two batters struck out, but Uhlaender singled and Carew hit a two-run homer. That chased Oakland starter Catfish Hunter from the game, but the Twins weren't done. Oliva singled, Killebrew walked, and Reese singled in a run to make the score 8-0. It stayed 8-0 until the seventh, when Cesar Tovar singled and Uhlaender and Carew had back-to-back doubles to increase the margin to 10-0.
The Athletics got all of their runs in the ninth. Ted Kubiak opened the inning with a walk, but the next two batters flied out. Bando then singled, Danny Cater had an RBI single, and Monday hit a three-run homer. It killed the rally, as Miller retired Tommie Reynolds on a ground out to end the game.
WP: Miller (2-2). LP: Hunter (5-7). S: None.
Notes: This was the Twins' first home game since June 19. They had played sixteen consecutive games on the road.
Tovar started in left field. He appeared in left field in forty games in 1969, but this was one of only three that he started there.
Carew raised his average to .367. Reese was now batting .327. Oliva raised his average to .317. Miller's ERA went to 2.91.
This was Miller's second start of five turns in the starting rotation. It was his only complete game of the season. Billy Martin clearly saw no reason to take him out early, despite the fact that the Twins were ahead 10-0. It was a different game then.
Hunter had a lot of problems with the Twins in 1969. In five starts against them, he was 0-3, 7.39 with a WHIP of 1.64. The Twins had eleven doubles and nine home runs against him for a slash line of .316/.364/.641. Their OPS against Hunter was 1.005. Hunter was not yet the superstar he would become, but at age twenty-three he had already been on two all-star teams. He would post an ERA of 3.35 and a WHIP of 1.19 in 1969. But he couldn't get the Twins out. In this game, he lasted just 3.2 innings and allowed seven runs on eight hits and one walk and struck out four.
Havana-born George Lauzerique would make nineteen appearances for Oakland in 1969, the most he would make in a season. b-r.com says he was drafted by Kansas City in the tenth round in 1965 but he made seven starts for St. Cloud, a Twins' affiliate in the Northern League. Occasionally a player would be "loaned" to a different organization back then--perhaps that's what happened here. Anyway, he got a September call-up in 1967 after a fine AA season. He was just twenty years old then, but he acquitted himself well, posting a 2.25 ERA and a 1.06 WHIP in 16 innings. He did not do particularly well for AAA Vancouver in 1968, but again got a September call-up, pitching one scoreless inning. He split 1969 between AAA and the majors. As stated earlier, he made nineteen appearances, eight of them starts. He was substantially better as a starter, going 3-2, 4.03, 1.30 WHIP. As a reliever he was 0-2, 6.48, 1.62. He was still just twenty-two at the end of that season, and he looked like a decent prospect. Oakland apparently didn't agree, as they traded him and Ted Kubiak to Milwaukee for Ray Oyler and Diego Segui. Maybe they were right. He started 1970 with the Brewers, but was pretty awful and was in AAA by the end of May. He was traded to St. Louis after the season and was in AAA for them most of the season, but somehow found his way to the Twins' AAA affiliate in Portland for seven starts, going 2-4, 4.17. I don't have a bio of him in the birthday list, something I'll try to remember to correct the next time July 22 rolls around. At any rate, he pitched in Mexico in 1972, then was out of baseball for two years. He posted a 2.07 ERA, which sounds impressive until you note that he was twenty-seven and the majority of his appearances came in Class A ball. He pitched poorly in 1976 and then was done for good. At last report, he was living in West Palm Beach.
Record: The Twins were 44-34, tied for first place with Oakland in the American League West, although they trailed in winning percentage .568 to .564.