MINNESOTA 5, LOS ANGELES 4 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Friday, May 12.

Batting stars:  Pedro Ramos was 2-for-3 with a home run and three RBIs.  Jim Lemon was 1-for-3 with a double, a walk, and two RBIs.

Pitching stars:  Pedro Ramos struck out eight in eight innings, giving up four runs on six hits and five walks.  Ray Moore pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a walk.

Opposition stars:  Earl Averill was 2-for-4 with a home run (his sixth) and a double.  Eli Grba was 1-for-2 with a home run.  Ken Hunt was 1-for-4 with a two-run homer, his fifth.  Johnny James struck out three in two shutout innings, giving up a walk.

The game:  Neither team got a hit for the first three innings.  In the fourth, Leon Wagner led off with a walk and Hunt hit a one-out two-run homer to give the Angels a 2-0 lead.  The Twins tied it in the bottom of the fourth.  Harmon Killebrew drew a one-out walk, Earl Battey singled, and Lemon hit a two-run double, making the score 2-2.

Los Angeles pitcher Grba homered in the top of the fifth, but Twins pitcher Ramos answered with a homer of his own in the bottom of the fifth, once again tying the game.  In the sixth, Lemon led off with a walk and went to second on a ground out.  Bob Allison was intentionally walked and Reno Bertoia was accidentally walked, loading the bases.  Ramos then came through again, knocking a two-run single to left to give the Twins a 5-3 lead.

The Angels put men on second and third with two out in the seventh, but did not score.  Averill led off the ninth with a home run, cutting the margin to 5-4, but Moore came in and allowed only a two-out walk to Faye Throneberry before closing the door.

WP:  Ramos (3-2).  LP:  Grba (3-3).  S:  Moore (4).

Notes:  Billy Gardner was the second baseman.  He would be replaced by Billy Martin after he was acquired on June 1 for Billy Consolo.  The Twins had quite the Billy club in 1961.  A little odd, too, that one future Twins manager was replaced by another.

Bertoia was at third base.  Bill Tuttle was the mostly regular at third, with Killebrew playing a fair number of games there as well.  At this stage of the season, however, Tuttle was an outfielder; he did not shift to third until late June, and had not played the position in the majors before.  He would not play it again, either, as he shifted back to the outfield in 1962.

The only position player substitution came in the ninth inning, when Dan Dobbek came in to replace Lemon in left field.

Battey was batting .345 in the young season.  He would finish at .302.  Killebrew was batting .342.  He would finish at .288.  Zoilo Versalles was batting .319.  He would finish at .280.  Lenny Green was batting .308.  He would finish at .285.  The Twins batted .250, good for seventh in the league.  Cleveland led the league at .266.

Killebrew, naturally, led the team in home runs with 46.  Allison hit 29, Battey had 17 and Lemon hit 14.  The Twins hit 167 home runs, fourth in the league.  New York led with 240.

It would be hard to say who the staff ace was in 1961.  Ramos led the team in starts at 34, and also pitched in relief 8 times.  He was 11-20, 3.95. 1.30 WHIP.  Camilo Pascual was 15-16, 3.46, 1.21.  Jack Kralick was 13-11, 3.62, 1.33, and Jim Kaat was 9-17, 3.90, 1.35.  The only other pitcher to make double digit starts was Don Lee, who was 3-6, 3.52, 1.11.  Closers weren't really a thing then--Moore led the team with 14 saves.  Each of the four main starters pitched over 200 innings and they had 49 complete games, so their weren't just a whole lot relief innings to be concerned about.

As a team, the Twins had an ERA of 4.28, seventh in the league.  Baltimore led at 3.22.  The Twins were fifth in WHIP at 1.39.  Baltimore led at 1.25.

I'm guessing that, back in the day, both starting pitchers hitting a home run wasn't that rare, but it was certainly uncommon.  I don't recall it happening in any of the random rewind games, nor do I recall it in the 1965 or 1969 rewinds, although I certainly could have forgotten.

Record:  The Twins were 13-12, in fourth place in the American League, 5.5 games behind Detroit.  They would finish 70-90, in seventh place, 38 games behind New York.

The Angels were 9-14, tied for eighth in the American League, 8.5 games behind Detroit.  They would finish 70-91, in eighth place, 38.5 games behind New York.

Detroit went 101-61 and finished eight games out of first place.  That had to be discouraging.

Random record:  The Twins are 41-40 in Random Rewind games.  If we do this for 162 games (which we won't, unless there's no 2020 season at all), we'd be at the half-way point of the random season.