MINNESOTA 6, DETROIT 4 IN DETROIT (12 INNINGS)
Date: Sunday, August 22.
Batting stars: Mike Cubbage was 3-for-5 with a home run (his second), a walk, and two RBIs. Lyman Bostock was 3-for-6 with a double, two runs, and two RBIs. Rod Carew was 2-for-4 with a walk. Butch Wynegar was 2-for-6 with a double. Larry Hisle was 2-for-6.
Pitching stars: Dave Goltz pitched eight innings, giving up four runs (two earned) on seven hits and five walks and striking out one. Tom Johnson pitched 1.1 scoreless innings, giving up a hit and a walk. Bill Campbell struck out three in 2.2 scoreless innings, giving up one hit.
Opposition stars: Vern Ruhle pitched 6.1 innings, giving up three runs on nine hits and a walk and striking out four. Rusty Staub was 2-for-5 with a double, a walk, and a stolen base (his third). Ron LeFlore was 2-for-6 with a double.
The game: With two out in the first, the Twins got consecutive singles from Carew, Wynegar, and Bostock to take a 1-0 lead. It stayed that way, with no particular threats, until the bottom of the fifth. With one out, Mark Wagner singled, Chuck Scrivener reached on an error, LeFlore singled home a run, and Ben Oglivie delivered a two-out two-run single to put the Tigers up 3-1.
The Twins got one back in the sixth on singles by Carew, Bostock, and Hisle. They tied it in the seventh on singles by Steve Braun and Roy Smalley and Carew's sacrifice fly. Cubbage homered in the eight to give the Twins a 4-3 advantage, but the Tigers tied it back up in the bottom of the eighth. Staub led off with a double, Aurelio Rodriguez drew a one-out walk, and Bill Freehan singled to load the bases. Alex Johnson hit a sacrifice fly, but that was all Detroit could do.
The Twins put men on first and second in both the ninth and tenth. The Tigers put men on first and second in the tenth and got a one-out double in the eleventh. Then came the twelfth. Wynegar and Bostock led off with consecutive doubles and Cubbage contributed an RBI single to give the Twins a 6-4 lead. The Tigers went down in order on three ground balls and the Twins had the win.
WP: Campbell (13-3). LP: John Hiller (11-7). S: None.
Notes: Braun was the DH and batted leadoff. I'd forgotten this, but Braun was often used as the leadoff batter that year, batting first sixty-two times.
Tony Oliva pinch-hit for second baseman Bobby Randall in the seventh. It was his last season and he was used primarily as a pinch-hitter, getting an occasional start at DH. Jerry Terrell went in to play second base in the bottom of the seventh.
Steve Brye went to right field to replace Dan Ford in the tenth. Ford had doubled in the top of the inning--perhaps he tweaked something running the bases. He would not miss any games.
Craig Kusick pinch-hit for Braun in the eleventh.
Carew was batting .322 after this game. He would end the season at .331. Bostock was batting .321. He would end the season at .323.
This was the year Campbell won seventeen games, all out of the bullpen. He would become a free agent and sign with Boston. His "closer" role would be filled by Johnson, who would win sixteen games, all out of the bullpen, the next year.
Goltz was the Twins' ace, to the extent they had one, at this point of the season. Bert Blyleven had started the season with the Twins, but had been traded to Texas by this point. Goltz had a pretty good year, going 14-14, 3.36, 1.32 WHIP. He would win twenty games for the only time in his career in the following season.
Record: The Twins were 62-62, in third place in the American League West, fourteen games behind Kansas City. They would finish 85-77, still in third place, but just five games behind Kansas City.
Detroit was 58-64, in fourth place in the American League East, fifteen games behind New York. They would finish 74-87, in fifth place, twenty-four games behind New York.