MINNESOTA 5, CALIFORNIA 2 IN CALIFORNIA
Date: Saturday, July 11.
Batting stars: Leo Cardenas was 3-for-5 with a home run (his eighth), two doubles, and two runs. Cesar Tovar was 2-for-4 with a double and a walk. Harmon Killebrew was 2-for-5 with a two-run homer, his twenty-fifth.
Pitching stars: Bill Zepp pitched six innings, giving up two runs on five hits and no walks and striking out two. Tom Hall struck out five in 2.1 scoreless innings, giving up two hits.
Opposition stars: Alex Johnson was 3-for-4 with a home run, his seventh. Jim Fregosi was 2-for-4. Future Twin Dave LaRoche struck out two in two shutout innings, giving up two hits.
The game: Neither team did much until the bottom of the fourth. Then, Fregosi and Johnson singled and Jim Spencer hit a sacrifice fly, giving the Angels a 1-0 lead.
The Twins came right back in the top of the fifth. Cardenas tied it with a leadoff home run. Tom Tischinski walked and was bunted to second, but he was still there with two out. An error then produced a run and Killebrew hit a two-run homer, giving the Twins a 4-1 lead.
Johnson homered in the sixth to make it 4-2. The Twins got the run back in the eighth when Cardenas doubled and scored on a Jim Holt single.
California threatened in the ninth. Johnson led off with a single and Ken McMullen hit a one-out single, bringing the tying run to the plate. But Ron Perranoski came in to retire Jarvis Tatum and Tom Egan to end the game.
WP: Zepp (5-0).
LP: Clyde Wright (12-6).
S: Perranoski (21).
Notes: Danny Thompson was at second base in place of Rod Carew. Bob Allison was in left in place of Brant Alyea. Tischinski was behind the plate in place of George Mitterwald. Holt came in to play left in the seventh as part of a double switch. Frank Quilici went in to play second base in the eighth, with Thompson moving to third and Killebrew leaving the game.
Killebrew was batting .322. Tony Oliva was 0-for-4 and was also batting .322. Tovar was batting .313. Cardenas was batting .300. Zepp had an ERA of 2.58. Hall had an ERA of 2.03. Perranoski retired both men he faced and had an ERA of 1.63.
Allison was 0-for-2 and was batting .195.
This would be the only time all season Cardenas would bat .300. He fell off substantially in the second half, batting just .188 after the all-star break.
Angels catcher Joe Azcue was hit by a pitch in the third inning. Egan replaced him starting the fourth.
The was LaRoche's first year in the majors. He was with California for two years, played for the Twins in 1972, spent two years with the Cubs, went to Cleveland in 1975, was traded back to the Angels in mid-1977, and played for the Yankees from 1981-1983. He made two all-star teams. For his career, he was 65-58, 3.53, 1.31 WHIP. He had 156 saves, with a high of twenty-five in 1978. A pretty solid career.
Wright pitched 4.2 innings, giving up four runs (one earned) on two hits and five walks and striking out three. Both hits he gave up were home runs.
With this game, we have reached the half-way point of the season.
Record: The Twins were 54-27, in first place in the American League West, six games ahead of California.
