MINNESOTA 4, BALTIMORE 3 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Wednesday, June 5.
Batting stars: Chili Davis was 3-for-4 with a stolen base. Lenny Webster was 1-for-4 with a two-run homer, his second.
Pitching star: Kevin Tapani pitched 7.2 innings, giving up one run on seven hits and a walk and striking out four.
Opposition stars: Randy Milligan was 2-for-4 with a home run, his fifth. Mike Devereaux was 2-for-4. Cal Ripken was 2-for-4. David Segui was 1-for-4 with a home run.
The game: Nobody got past first until the fourth inning, when the Twins put men on second and third with two out. The Twins started the scoring in the fifth, when Mike Pagliarulo walked and Webster followed with a two-run homer, giving the Twins a 2-0 lead.
The Orioles got one back in the sixth when Devereaux singled, Tim Hulett walked, and Joe Orsulak delivered an RBI single. The Twins got the run back plus another in the bottom of the sixth on singles by Kent Hrbek and Davis and a two-run single-plus-error by Shane Mack, making the score 4-1.
Baltimore got a pair of two-out singles in the eighth, but Rick Aguilera came in to retire Orsulak. In the ninth, however, with Aguilera still in the game, the Orioles got one-out back-to-back homers from Milligan and David Segui to cut the lead to 4-3. Aguilera came back to strike out Chris Hoiles and Ernie Whitt to save the win.
WP: Tapani (3-6). LP: Jose Mesa (4-6). S: Aguilera (13).
Notes: Al Newman was at second base in place of Chuck Knoblauch. He batted second despite his .484 OPS. Webster was behind the plate in place of Brian Harper.
Webster was batting .333. He had two hits to this point in the season, both home runs. Kirby Puckett was 0-for-3 with a walk and was batting .330. Greg Gagne was 0-for-3 and was batting .311. Davis raised his average to .304. Despite giving up two runs, Aguilera still had an ERA of just 2.33.
Newman was 0-for-4 and was batting .187.
Mesa pitched 5.1 innings and allowed four runs (three earned) on six hits and three walks and struck out one.
The Twins had won five in a row. That matched their longest winning streak of the season, April 24-28.
Record: The Twins were 28-25, fifth in the American League West, but just one percentage point behind fourth-place Seattle. They trailed Oakland by 4.5 games.