MINNESOTA TWINS 2, SEATTLE MARINERS 1 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Wednesday, June 1, 1994.

Batting stars:  Alex Cole was 3-for-4 with a double.  Pat Meares was 2-for-3.  Chuck Knoblauch was 2-for-4 with two doubles and two RBIs.

Pitching stars:  Kevin Tapani pitched eight innings, giving up one run on seven hits and a walk and striking out six.  Rick Aguilera pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit and striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Felix Fermin was 3-for-3 with a double.  Chris Bosio pitched a complete game, giving up two runs on nine hits and a walk and striking out one.

The game:  Cole hit a one-out double in the first but remained at second.  Seattle got on the board in the third, as Fermin hit a one-out double and scored on Torey Lovullo’s two-out double.  The Twins got the run back in the third when Meares laid down a bunt single and scored on a Knoblauch double.  

Each team missed chances to take the lead.  Fermin and Dan Wilson hit one-out singles in the top of the fifth, but a strikeout and a fly out ended the inning.  In the bottom half, Meares singled with one out and advanced to third with two out on a stolen base-plus-error, but a ground out ended that threat.  In the top of the sixth, Tino Martinez hit a two-run single and went all the way from first to third on a passed ball, but was stranded there.

The Twins finally broke through in the seventh.  Matt Walbeck singled with one out.  He went to second on a ground out and Knoblauch delivered an RBI double to put the Twins ahead.  Cole followed with a single put men on first and third, but the Twins could do no more.  

Still, they led, 2-1, and it was enough.  The Mariners got a two-out single in each of the last two innings, but did not move the man past first.

WP:  Tapani (6-2)..

LP:  Bosio (2-7).

S:  Aguilera (11).

Notes:  Chip Hale was at first base, with Kent Hrbek moving to DH.  Dave Winfield was the regular DH that season.  David McCarty came in for defense at first in the ninth.

Kirby Puckett was batting .335.  He would finish at .317.  Knoblauch was batting .328.  He would finish at .312.  Shane Mack was batting .315.  He would finish at .333.  Cole was batting .306.  He would finish at .296.

Tapani was really up and down in 1994, mixing some fine games like this with some bad ones.  He would finish 11-7, but with an ERA of 4.62.  That ERA was actually the best among Twins starters, with Pat Mahomes as the only other starter posting an ERA under five.  Despite that, the Twins made no changes to their rotation, with only six starts made outside of their regular five starters.  The starting five was Tapani, Mahomes (4.73), Scott Erickson (5.44), Carlos Pulido (5.98), and Jim DeShaies (7.39).

This was Fermin’s last season as a regular.  He would be a part-time player for the Mariners in 1995 and make eleven appearances for the Cubs in 1996 before ending his major league career.

Record:  Seattle was 21-30, in third place in the AL West, just 2.5 games behind Texas.  They would finish 49-63, just two games behind Texas.  Texas won the division with a record of 52-62, but there were no playoffs that season.

The Twins were 26-24, in third place in the AL Central, 4.5 games behind the White Sox.  They would finish 53-60, in fourth place, fourteen games behind the White Sox.

Random Record:  The Random Twins have a five-game winning streak and are 6-3 (.667).