MINNESOTA TWINS 4, NEW YORK YANKEES 1 IN NEW YORK

Date:  Thursday, May 17, 1990.

Batting stars:  Brian Harper was 2-for-4 with a home run (his fourth) and a double.  Greg Gagne was 2-for-4 with a double.  Gary Gaetti was 2-for-4.  Dan Gladden was 2-for-5 with a double and two runs.  Kent Hrbek hit a home run, his sixth.

Pitching stars:  Kevin Tapani pitched 7.1 innings, giving up one run on seven hits and striking out five.  Rick Aguilera retired all four men he faced, striking out two.

Opposition star:  Roberto Kelly was 2-for-4.  

The game:  Gladden led off the game with a double and scored on a Gaetti single.  Harper homered in the second to make it 2-0.  Meanwhile, Tapani faced the minimum through four innings, with the only baserunner getting erased by a double play.

That changed in the fifth, as Mel Hall led off with a double and Claudell Washington singled him home.  New York threatened in the sixth, getting two-out singles by Steve Sax and Kelly, but a popup took them out of the inning.

Hrbek homered in the seventh to make it 3-1 Twins.  In the eighth, Gladden singled and was bunted to second.  Kirby Puckett was intentionally walked, Gaetti singled to load the bases, and a Gene Larkin sacrifice fly put the Twins up 4-1.

And that’s where it stayed.  The Yankees got one-out singles from Mike Blowers and Alvaro Espinoza, chasing Tapani from the game, but Terry Leach got a force out and Aguilera retired the last four New York batters.

WP:  Tapani (5-2).

LP:  Dave LaPoint (2-3).

S:  Aguilera (10).

Notes:  Fred Manrique was at second base.  Al Newman was the closest thing the Twins had to a regular second baseman, but of course, he also saw substantial time at third and short.  Nelson Liriano was the other player who was sometimes at second base.

Shane Mack was batting .366.  He would finish at .326.  Dan Gladden was batting .339.  He would finish at .275.  Gene Larkin was batting .308.  He would finish at .269.  Kirby Puckett was batting .302.  He would finish at .298.

Kevin Tapani had an ERA of 2.79.  He would finish at 4.07.  Terry Leach had an ERA of 2.33.  He would finish at 3.20.  Rick Aguilera had an ERA of 1.80.  He would finish at 2.76.

Roberto Kelly would play for the Twins from 1996-1997.  Alvaro Espinoza had played for the Twins from 1984-1986.

The Twins could not find a second baseman in 1990.  Al Newman played 89 games there and posted an OPS of .582.  Manrique was there for 67 games and had an OPS of .601.  Nelson Liriano played second for 50 games and had the best batting numbers, batting .254 with an OPS of .688.  During this time, Manrique was asked what the Twins needed to improve.  His response was “a second baseman”.  The next year, of course, Chuck Knoblauch would come along and solve that problem for several years.

This was the era in which George Steinbrenner seemed to think that if you paid a superstar salary to an average player, he would become a superstar.  Thus, players like Claudell Washington and Mel Hall got big paydays while remaining pretty much the same players they’d always been–good, but not great.  Eventually, of course, Steinbrenner would realize the error of his ways and build championship teams.

Record:  The Yankees were 13-18 in fifth place in the AL East, 6 games behind Milwaukee.  They would finish 67-95, in seventh (last) place, 21 games behind Boston.

The Twins were 18-15, in third place in the AL West, 5 games behind Oakland.  They would finish 74-88, in seventh (last) place, 29 games behind Oakland.

Random Record:  The Random Twins have won five in a row and are 19-12 (.613).