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Keeping Track

Random Rewind: 1970, Game Fifty-two

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MINNESOTA 5, BOSTON 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Friday, June 12.

Batting stars:  Leo Cardenas was 4-for-4.  Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-2 with three walks.

Pitching stars:  Jim Perry pitched six innings, giving up one run on five hits and two walks and striking out four.  Ron Perranoski pitched 2.1 scoreless innings, giving up one hit and striking out two.

Opposition stars:  Tom Satriano was 2-for-3 with a home run.  Mike Andrews was 2-for-4.

The game:  The Twins took a 1-0 lead in the second when Brant Alyea reached on an error, Cardenas singled, and Perry delivered an RBI single.  The Twins loaded the bases in the third on two walks and a single, but could not add to their lead.  That changed in the fifth.  Tony Oliva singled with one out.  With two down, Alyea had an RBI double and Cardenas hit a run-scoring single, making it 3-0 Twins.

The Red Sox got on the board in the sixth when Satriano led off with a home run.  Rico Petrocelli led off the seventh with a single.  He was still on first with two out, but Satriano singled and Mike Fiore had an RBI single.  The Twins lead was down to 3-2 and the tying run was on third, but Andrews struck out to end the inning.

The Twins got control again in the eighth.  Jim Holt walked, Cardenas singled, and George Mitterwald had an RBI single.  With two out, Rod Carew delivered a run-scoring double to build the lead back to three at 5-2.

The Red Sox managed only a one-out single in the ninth.  The game ended, oddly enough, when Jerry Moses popped up a bunt, which was caught by Perranoski.

WP:  Perry (8-5).  LP:  Gary Peters (3-7).  S:  Perranoski (14).

Notes:  Rick Renick was the third baseman in this game, with Killebrew moving to first.  Killebrew was primarily a third baseman in 1970, with Rich Reese the regular at first.  Others who played a decent number of games at third, often coming in for defense, are Danny Thompson and Frank Quilici.

Carew was the second baseman in this game.  Between injuries and military service, he was able to play only forty-five games at second base, with Thompson and Quilici handling most of the second base duties.

Holt pinch-ran for Alyea in the fifth and remained in the game in left field.  Charlie Manuel pinch-hit for Perry in the sixth, even though Perry was batting .313 and Manuel was batting .214.  Reese pinch-hit for Renick in the seventh and went to first base, with Killebrew moving to third.  Quilici pinch-ran for Killebrew in the ninth and remained in the game at third base.

Carew was leading the team in batting at .371.  He would finish at .366 in 204 plate appearances.  Oliva was batting .333.  He would finish at .325.  Killebrew was batting .315.  He would finish at .271.  Perry was batting .313.  He would finish at .247.

All the Twins pitchers had ERAs under 3.00.  Perry was at 2.81.  He would finish at 3.04.  Stan Williams was at 2.21.  He would finish at 1.99.  Perranoski was at 2.00.  He would finish at 2.43.

Record:  The Twins were 35-17, in first place in the American League West, 2.5 games ahead of California.  They would finish 98-64, in first place, nine games ahead of Oakland.

The Red Sox were 26-27, in fourth place in the American League East, 9.5 games behind Baltimore.  They would finish 87-75, in third place, twenty-one games behind Baltimore.

Keeping Track

1991 Rewind: Game Fifty-four

MINNESOTA 2, CLEVELAND 0 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Friday, June 7.

Batting stars:  Kent Hrbek was 2-for-3 with a walk and a stolen base, his third.  Chili Davis was 1-for-3 with a home run (his twelfth) and a walk.

Pitching stars:  Allan Anderson pitched eight shutout innings, giving up two hits and one walk and striking out three.  He threw just 81 pitches.  Rick Aguilera pitched a perfect ninth and struck out one.

Opposition star:  Tom Candiotti pitched 7.1 innings, giving up two runs on five hits and two walks and striking out five.

The game:  Neither team had a hit until the bottom of the second, when Davis led off the inning with a home run.  The Indians got their first base runner in the fourth, when Mike Huff led off with a single.  He was immediately erased by a double play.  Cleveland would not get another hit until the eighth, when Joel Skinner led off with a double.  Pinch-runner Alex Cole was caught stealing third, so that baserunner was also wiped out.  They did have two on in the seventh, when Carlos Baerga was hit by a pitch and Brook Jacoby walked, but a fly out ended that inning.

The Twins added a run in the eighth.  Chuck Knoblauch and Hrbek singled, and a wild pitch brought home the run to make it 2-0.

WP:  Anderson (3-4).  LP:  Candiotti (7-3).  S:  Aguilera (14).

Notes:  Dan Gladden was dropped to the ninth spot in the batting order, with Greg Gagne leading off.  It would be the only time all year he would bat ninth.  Shane Mack was now the right fielder.  Al Newman pinch-hit for Mike Pagliarulo in the eighth and remained in the game at third base.

Brian Harper was 0-for-3 with a walk and was batting .326.  Kirby Puckett was 0-for-4 and was batting .324.  Gagne was 1-for-4 and was batting .309.  Davis was batting .304.  Aguilera's ERA went down to 2.25.

Newman was 0-for-1 and was batting .184.

This was obviously the best game of the year for Anderson.  It's too bad, given his pitch count, that he wasn't allowed to finish the game.  Aguilera had pitched in each of the team's last three games, so it's not like he needed the work.  One can only conclude that Tom Kelly did not trust Anderson with a two-run lead in the ninth and so decided he needed to bring Aguilera in.  Which, given how Anderson had pitched so far this season, was understandable, but he was certainly in complete control in this game.

In 1991, Candiotti had an ERA of 2.65 (sixth in the league), a 1.16 WHIP, and yet had a record of just 13-13.  Playing half the season for Cleveland didn't help, but he also played half the season for Toronto, a very good team.  He had a few seasons like that, where he had a low ERA, a low WHIP, but a poor won-lost record.  1992:  11-15, 3.00, 1.18.  1993: 8-10, 3.12, 1.23.  1995:  7-14, 3.50, 1.29.  For his career, he was 151-164, 3.73, 1.30.  One has to conclude that he didn't get a whole lot of support for a lot of his career.

The win gave the Twins a six-game winning streak, their longest of the season so far.  Pitching was definitely driving the streak.  They had scored more than four runs only once, but had only given up as many as four once.  They were out-scoring their opponents 25-13, for an average score of about 4-2.  And with the winning streak, they were starting to climb in the standings, as you'll see below.

Record:  The Twins were 29-25, fourth in the American League West, just five percentage points behind third-place Texas.  They were four games behind first-place Oakland and led fifth-place Seattle by a half game.

Keeping Track

2019 Recap: Game Seventy-one

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BOSTON 2, MINNESOTA 0 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Monday, June 17.

Batting star:  C. J. Cron was 2-for-4.

Pitching star:  Jose Berrios struck out ten in eight innings, giving up one run on five hits and no walks.

Opposition stars:  Rick Porcello struck out eight in seven shutout innings, giving up four hits and a walk.  J. D. Martinez was 2-for-4 with a double.  Xander Bogaerts was 2-for-4 with a double.

The game:  The Red Sox jumped on Berrios right away, opening the game with consecutive singles by Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, and Martinez.  That produced one run and would've produced more had not Marwin Gonzalez thrown out Benintendi trying to stretch his hit into a double.

And that was the only scoring for some time.  Nelson Cruz hit a  two-out double in the first but nothing came of it.  After that neither team even got a baserunner until the fifth.  There was no threat to score until the seventh, when Cron hit a one-out double, and again nothing came of it.

The Twins' best scoring chance came in the eighth.  Jonathan Schoop led off with a single and Max Kepler walked.  Jorge Polanco bunted the runners to second and third with one out, but Cruz hit back to the pitcher and Schoop was thrown out at the plate on a contact play.  Eddie Rosario grounded out to end the inning.

Boston got an insurance run in the ninth on doubles by Martinez and Bogaerts.  The Twins went down in order in the bottom of the ninth.

WP:  Porcello (5-6).  LP:  Berrios (8-3).  S:  Ryan Brasier (7).

Notes:  Gonzalez remained in right, with Kepler in center and Byron Buxton remaining on the bench with a bruised wrist.  I've said this before, but I'm quite pleased that the Twins are allowing Buxton's wrist to heal properly, rather than rushing him back into the lineup.  Maybe that's Rocco's influence, because it sure seems different from recent years.

Polanco was 1-for-3 and is batting .332.  Berrios has an ERA of 2.86.

This was another frustrating loss, although in a different way.  It was frustrating to get such excellent pitching out of Berrios and not be able to take advantage of it.  It should be mentioned that after the Martinez RBI single in the first, Berrios retired the next nineteen batters.  He struck out ten and did not walk anyone.  That's really, really good.  There's no shame in getting shut down by Porcello, who's a good pitcher, too, but you hate to lose a game when your own starting pitcher did so well.

I really didn't have a problem with Polanco's bunt in the eighth inning.  I realize that's going to be a minority opinion here, and that's fine.  No one has to agree with me, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to argue about it this morning.  But he moved the go-ahead run into scoring position with two really good batters coming up.  I don't have a problem with doing that.  It just didn't work.

I do have a problem with the contact play, and always have.  I've never seen a study on it, but it just seems like there are a lot of times it doesn't work, and when it doesn't it pretty much takes you out of the inning.  Earl Weaver once said of the hit-and-run "it has it's place, but most of the time that place is in the back of a deep, dark closet".  That's where I'd put the contact play, too.

But the good news is that we still have the best record in baseball, we still have a ten game lead on the Clevelands, and today is a new day.  Michael Pineda pitched quite well last time and hasn't had a really bad game in quite some time.  The Twins haven't lost three in a row all year.  They probably will at some point, but let's not let it be tonight.

Record:  The Twins are 47-24, first in the American League Central, ten games ahead of Cleveland.

Projected record:  We'll just have to settle for 138-24!