Tag Archives: Al Newman–pinch hitter

Keeping Track

1991 Rewind: Game Sixty-seven

MINNESOTA 5, NEW YORK 4 IN NEW YORK

Date:  Friday, June 21.

Batting stars:  Chuck Knoblauch was 3-for-4 with a double, a stolen base (his seventh), and two RBIs.  Dan Gladden was 3-for-5 with a home run (his fourth), a double, two runs, and two RBIs.  Shane Mack was 2-for-4 with a stolen base, his fifth.

Pitching stars:  Mark Guthrie pitched seven innings, giving up four runs (three earned) on nine hits and a walk and striking out five.  Steve Bedrosian struck out two in a scoreless inning, giving up two hits.  Rick Aguilera struck out two in a perfect inning.

Opposition stars:  Carlos Rodriguez was 2-for-3.  Mel Hall was 2-for-4.  Don Mattingly was 2-for-5 with a two-run homer, his sixth.  Greg Cadaret pitched three shutout innings, giving up two hits and a walk and striking out two.

The game:  Gladden led off the game with a home run, giving the Twins a 1-0 lead.  Knoblauch followed with a double, but the Twins could do no more in the first inning.  The Yankees came back in the second.  Hall hit a one-out single, Alvaro Espinoza reached on an error, and RBI singles by Bob Geren and Rodriguez put the Yankees up 2-1.

The Twins got the lead back in the fourth.  They started the inning with consecutive singles by Chili Davis, Brian Harper, and Mack, tying the score.  A pair of fly outs followed, but then came a double by Gladden and a single by Knoblauch to give the Twins a 5-2 advantage.

There was no more scoring until the seventh.  With two out, Steve Sax walked and Mattingly hit a two-run homer, cutting the margin to 5-4.  They threatened to take the lead in the eighth.  Pat Sheridan had a one-out single and Espinoza had a two-out single, putting men on first and third, but pinch-hitter Matt Nokes struck out to end the inning.  The Yankees went down in order in the ninth.

WP:  Guthrie (5-3).  LP:  Scott Sanderson (7-3).  S:  Aguilera (18).

Notes:  The Twins went with a pretty standard lineup.  Al Newman pinch-hit for Mike Pagliarulo in the ninth and stayed in the game to play short.  Gene Larkin pinch-hit for Greg Gagne in the ninth, with Scott Leius coming into the game at third base.  As you were going to put Leius in the game anyway, I don't know why you wouldn't rather use him as a pinch-hitter than Newman against the left-handed Greg Cadaret, but Newman walked, so I guess you can say it worked.

Harper went 1-for-4 and was batting .342.  Kirby Puckett was 1-for-4 and was batting .327.  Steve Bedrosian lowered his ERA to 3.47.  Aguilera's ERA fell to 2.88.

This was the only two-hit game Carlos Rodriguez had in 1991.  He was twenty-three that year, and wasn't ready yet.  He appeared in just 15 games and batted .189.  He was in the minors for two more years, then went to the Boston organization.  He was with the Red Sox for half of 1994 and batted .287/.330/.397 as a part-time player.  He got a September call-up in 1995 and batted .333/.394/.400.  Then, however, he had rotator cuff surgery and went into coaching.  He eventually did some more playing, too, appearing in twenty-four games in 1999 and playing regularly in the Mexican League from 2002-2003.  He currently owns "The Strike Zone", a youth baseball training facility in Winchester, Ohio.  If not for his injuries, he might have had a decent career.

The Twins had now won three in a row, eighteen of nineteen, and twenty-one of twenty-three.

Record:  The Twins were 41-26, in first place in the American League West, three games ahead of Oakland.

Keeping Track

1991 Rewind: Game Twenty-two

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MILWAUKEE 5, MINNESOTA 1 IN MILWAUKEE

Date:  Thursday, May 2.

Batting stars:  Kirby Puckett was 1-for-3 with a triple and a walk.  Brian Harper was 1-for-3 with a walk.

Pitching star:  Kevin Tapani pitched seven innings, giving up three runs on eight hits and one walk and striking out five.

Opposition stars:  Kevin Brown pitched 6.2 innings, giving up one run on four hits and five walks and striking out four.  Chuck Crim pitched 2.1 scoreless innings, giving up one hit and striking out one.  Willie Randolph was 2-for-4 with a stolen base and two RBIs.  Paul Molitor was 2-for-4 with a double.

The game:  The Twins drew two walks in the first inning but did nothing with them.  In the bottom of the second, Franklin Stubbs led off with a double and scored on a two-out single by Randolph.  The Twins got another man to second base in the fifth when Scott Leius walked and stole second with two out, but there he stayed.  The Twins tied it in the sixth, however, when Puckett hit a one-out triple and scored on Harper's single.

It didn't stay tied long.  In the bottom of the sixth, Robin Yount led off with a single and Stubbs walked.  Greg Vaughn bunted the runners over, Dante Bichette hit a sacrifice fly, and Randolph had an RBI single to give the Brewers a 3-1 lead.

The Twins got singles from Carmelo Castillo and Greg Gagne in the seventh, but they were stranded.  It was the last threat the Twins had.  Milwaukee added two insurance runs in the eighth.  Vaughn walked and scored on Bichette's double.  Bichette then stole third and scored when Randolph's fly ball was missed by right fielder Gene Larkin.

WP: Brown (2-0).  LP:  Tapani (2-1).  S:  Crim (3).

Notes:  Castillo was the DH, with Chili Davis out of the lineup.  Kent Hrbek was dropped down to the sixth spot in the order, with Harper batting fourth and Larkin fifth.  With Larkin in right, Puckett was again in center.

Al Newman pinch-hit for Castillo in the ninth.  It was one of twenty-four times he was used as a pinch-hitter in 1991.  I don't know the circumstances of all of them--he may have been batting in a blowout to give a regular a rest sometimes.  But still, it says something about your bench, or your manager, or both, that you use a player like him as a pinch-hitter that many times.

Larkin was 0-for-4 and was batting .342.  Harper was batting .327.  Puckett was at .326.  Chuck Knoblauch was 1-for-4 and was batting .313.  Gagne was 1-for-3 and was at .305.  Tapani's ERA went to 2.43.

Newman was 0-for-1 as a pinch-hitter and was batting .150.  Randy Bush was 0-for-1 as a pinch-hitter and was batting .160.  Hrbek was 0-for-3 with a walk and was batting .171.  Gladden was 0-for-3 with a walk and fell back below the Mendoza line at .197.  Terry Leach pitched one inning, giving up two runs (one earned) on a hit and a walk and had an ERA of 5.14.

Look at this lineup the Brewers used:  Molitor, Jim Gantner, Yount, Stubbs, Vaughn, Bichette, Randolph, B. J. Surhoff, Dale Sveum.  Those are some pretty big names.  Granted, a few of them (Vaughn, Bichette, Surhoff) were still near the beginning of their careers and were not yet what they would become.  Still, that sounds like a pretty formidable lineup.  What Franklin Stubbs was doing in the middle of it is another question, but I guess you can't have everything.

The Kevin Brown who pitched is not "the" Kevin Brown.  This Kevin Brown appeared in 24 games over 3 seasons.  By game scores, this was his second-best game of the season and third-best of his career.  For his career, he was 3-5, 4.82, 1.46 WHIP.  He made thirteen career starts and pitched a total of 89.2 major league innings.

I had completely forgotten that Willie Randolph had played for Milwaukee.  The Yankees had decided he was done after a 1988 season in which he batted .230.  He went to the Dodgers in 1989 and made the all-star team.  He split 1990 between the Dodgers and Oakland, then went to the Brewers for 1991.  At age thirty-six, he had one of the best years of his career, batting .327/.424/.374.  He went to the Mets in 1992, then was done.  He managed the Mets from 2005-2008.  He has coached for a couple of teams, and is currently a coach for the United States National Team at the WSBC Premier12, an international baseball championship.

Record:  The Twins were 10-12, tied for fifth with Seattle in the American League West, 4.5 games behind Oakland.