MILWAUKEE 4, MINNESOTA 2 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Wednesday, May 15.
Batting star: Brian Harper was 2-for-3 with a double.
Pitching stars: Larry Casian pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two hits. Steve Bedrosian pitched a perfect inning.
Opposition stars: Paul Molitor was 4-for-5 and hit for the cycle. The home run was his second of the year. Chris Bosio pitched 7.1 innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on six hits and no walks and striking out one. Willie Randolph was 2-for-4.
The game: Molitor led off the game with a triple and scored on a ground out to give the Brewers and early 1-0 lead. In the third, singles by B. J. Surhoff and Molitor and another run-scoring ground out made it 2-0. The Twins got their first hit in the bottom of the third, a single by Mike Pagliarulo. In the fourth, Robin Yount led off with a double, went to third on a fly ball, and scored on yet another run-scoring ground out to make it 3-0. Molitor got a double with one out in the fifth, and a pair of two-out walks loaded the bases, but Greg Brock struck out to keep the score 3-0.
The Twins got on the board in the fifth when Randy Bush got a one-out single-plus-error and scored on Harper's single. Milwaukee got the run back in the seventh when Molitor led off with a home run.
The Twins made a run at getting back into the game in the eighth. Harper led off with a double and scored on a Greg Gagne single to make it 4-2. Dan Gladden then singled to put the tying run on base, but Chuck Knoblauch hit into a double play. The Twins went down in order in the ninth.
WP: Bosio (4-4). LP: Kevin Tapani (2-3). S: Dan Plesac (1).
Notes: Randy Bush was in right field.
With one out and none on in the ninth, the Brewers brought in lefty Plesac to face Kent Hrbek. The Twins countered by sending Shane Mack up to pinch-hit. Unfortunately, Mack grounded to third.
Harper increased his average to .393. Knoblauch was 0-for-4 and was batting .320. Chili Davis was 0-for-4 and was batting .312.
Kirby Puckett was 0-for-4 to drop his average to .299. He would remain below .300 for one more game, then get back above it and stay there the rest of the season.
Harper was 14-for-23 with four doubles in his last six games.
Tapani pitched seven innings, giving up four runs on seven hits and three walks and striking out two. His ERA went up to 3.00. It had to be a frustrating game for him. He only gave up seven hits, but four of them went for extra bases. All those runs that scored on ground outs must have been frustrating for him, too. But, that's baseball. Of course, if he could've figured out a way to get Molitor out, the Twins might've won the game.
This was the start of a tough stretch for Tapani. It was the first of four consecutive starts in which he gave up four or five runs. He pitched into the seventh in three of the four starts, though, and in his first 15 starts he had only one in which he pitched fewer than six innings. He went over 100 pitched in eight of those starts, but never more than 116.
Bedrosian lowered his ERA to 3.20.
Plesac had taken over the closer role for the Brewers in 1986 and made the all-star team every year from 1987-1989. He struggled in 1990, however, and by the start of the 1991 season had lost the closer role to Edwin Nunez. Nunez got hurt in early May, however. Plesac was given some of the save opportunities after that, but most of them went to Doug Henry. Plesac would never be "the closer" again, although it appears he was part of a closer-by-committee in Pittsburgh in 1996. He had 158 saves for his career, but only 34 after 1990. For a few years, though, he was as good a closer as anyone.
Record: The Twins were 17-16, tied for fourth place with California in the American League West, 2.5 games behind Oakland. They were only two percentage points behind third-place California.