MILWAUKEE 6, MINNESOTA 3 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Thursday, May 16.
Batting stars: Greg Gagne was 2-for-4 with a home run, his fourth. Mike Pagliarulo was 2-for-4 with a double. Pedro Munoz was 1-for-3 with a home run and a walk.
Pitching stars: Carl Willis pitched 3.1 innings of relief, giving up one run on five hits. Terry Leach pitched 1.2 scoreless innings, giving up one hit. Rick Aguilera pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit and two walks and striking out one.
Opposition stars: Greg Vaughn was 3-for-5 with a triple. Dale Sveum was 2-for-3 with a double and a walk. Willie Randolph was 2-for-4 with a walk. Robin Yount was 2-for-5 with a home run (his eighth), two runs, and two RBIs. Bill Wegman pitched five innings, giving up two runs on five hits and a walk and striking out two. Darren Holmes pitched four innings, giving up one run on four hits and no walks and striking out one.
The game: Most of the runs came early. Paul Molitor led off the game by being hit by a pitch. He stole second and scored on a single by Vaughn, who was thrown out trying to stretch the hit to a double. Yount then followed with a home run to give the Brewers a 2-0 lead.
The Twins got the runs back in the bottom of the first. Gagne led off the inning with a home run. Shane Mack was hit by a pitch, went to second on a Kirby Puckett single, and scored on a pair of fly outs to tie the score 2-2.
Milwaukee then took control. Dante Bichette led off the second with a home run. In the third, Vaughn hit a two-out triple, Yount singled him home, and Franklin Stubbs hit an RBI double to give the Brewers a 5-2 advantage.
The Twins didn't do a lot after that. Pagliarulo hit a one-out double in the fourth but didn't advance. A couple of singles didn't amount to anything. Milwaukee added a run in the seventh when Sveum doubled and Randolph singled, making it 6-2. Munoz hit a home run leading off the ninth, but the Twins never threatened to get back into the game.
WP: Wegman (1-1). LP: Allan Anderson (1-3). S: Holmes (1).
Notes: With the day game, Dan Gladden was out of the lineup. Shane Mack was in left and Munoz in right. Gene Larkin was at first base replacing Kent Hrbek. Al Newman was at second, replacing Chuck Knoblauch.
Brian Harper was 1-for-3 and was batting .391. Gagne raised his average to .301. Chili Davis was 0-for-4 and was batting .301. Leach lowered his ERA to 2.77. Aguilera's ERA was at 1.84.
Anderson lasted just three innings, giving up five runs on six hits and a walk and striking out two. In his last two starts, he had given up nine runs on twelve hits in seven innings. His ERA went from 3.55 to 4.80.
Willis had appeared in four games since his call-up on April 23. Three of those appearances were of three innings or longer.
Holmes had three saves in 1991. All of them were of the three-or-more-innings variety. He would go on to get 59 saves in his career. He was the closer for Colorado in their first year of existence in 1993 and was again their closer for about a month in 1995.
Bill Wegman was in the Brewers' rotation from 1986-1988, then missed a lot of time in the next two seasons due to injuries. He came back in 1991 to have the best year of his career, going 15-7, 2.84, 1.12 WHIP. He had a fine year in 1992 as well, going 13-14 but with an ERA of 3.20 and a WHIP of 1.17. He pitched 261.1 innings, though, and it was apparently too much for him. He stayed with Milwaukee for three more seasons, and in fact spent his entire career with them, but he never had a good year again. For his career he was 81-90, 4.16, 1.29 WHIP. For two seasons, though, he was an excellent starting pitcher.
Record: The Twins were 17-17, tied with Chicago for fifth place in the American League West, 3.5 games behind Oakland. The Twins were just a half game out of fourth and a game out of third.