MINNESOTA 8, CHICAGO 2 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Friday, July 3.
Batting stars: Danny Thompson was 3-for-4 with two runs. Cesar Tovar was 2-for-3 with a double, a walk, and two runs. Tony Oliva was 2-for-4 with a double and two runs. Rick Renick was 2-for-4. Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-3 with a three-run homer (his twenty-third) and a walk.
Pitching star: Jim Perry pitched a complete game, giving up two runs (one earned) on six hits and a walk and striking out six.
Opposition stars: Duane Josephson was 2-for-3. Floyd Weaver struck out four in three shutout innings, giving up one hit and two walks.
The game: The White Sox scored first, tallying twice in the first inning. One-out singles by Luis Aparicio and Carlos May put men on first and third. A passed ball scored one run and Josephson's two-out single made it 2-0 Chicago.
The Twins came back with four in the bottom of the first. Tovar and Thompson led off the inning with singles. A wild pitch scored a run and Tony Oliva delivered an RBI double to tie it 2-2. Killebrew then walked, a run-scoring single by Jim Holt put the Twins ahead, and an error made it 4-2 Twins after one.
It was all Twins after that. In the second Tovar doubled and scored on a Thompson single to make it 5-2. In the fifth, Thompson and Oliva singled and Killebrew hit a three-run homer to bring the score to 8-2.
The White Sox never had two men on base after the first inning and only once advanced a man to second.
WP: Perry (12-6).
LP: Joel Horlen (6-10).
S: None.
Notes: Thompson was at second in place of Rod Carew. Holt was in left in place of Brant Alyea. Renick was at third, with Killebrew moving to first and Rich Reese on the bench. Frank Quilici came in to play second in the sixth, with Thompson moving to shortstop and Leo Cardenas leaving the game.
Oliva was batting .325. Killebrew was batting .313. Tovar was batting .308.
Quilici was 0-for-1 and was batting .177.
It was Perry's seventh complete game of the season.
The Twins were once again able to get to Joel Horlen. He pitched five innings and allowed eight runs (seven earned) on ten hits and a walk and struck out one. Horlen had been a good pitcher for several years, but he started to decline in 1969 and the decline was more pronounced in 1970--he went 6-16, 4.86. He was especially bad against the Twins--0-4, 8.03, 1.99 WHIP. He would do better in 1971 and have a decent year mostly pitching out of the bullpen for Oakland in 1972 before ending his playing career.
The Twins started their homestand 5-0. They had just gone 3-4 against those same two teams on the road.
Record: The Twins were 48-25, in first place in the American League West, four games ahead of California.