MINNESOTA 7, KANSAS CITY 5 IN KANSAS CITY
Date: Monday, May 18.
Batting stars: Rod Carew was 3-for-5 with a two-run homer, his second. Cesar Tovar was 1-for-2 with three walks, a stolen base (his twelfth), and two runs. Leo Cardenas was 1-for-3 with a two-run homer (his fourth) and a walk. Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-4 with a home run (his twelfth) and a walk.
Pitching star: Ron Perranoski struck out two in two shutout innings, giving up one hit.
Opposition stars: Joe Keough was 3-for-4 with two runs. Ex-Twin Jackie Hernandez was 2-for-3 with two RBIs. Amos Otis was 2-for-5 with a two-run homer, his fourth.
The game: The Twins took the lead in the second when Rick Renick singled and Cardenas followed with a two-run homer. The Royals came right back to tie it in the bottom of the second. Keough singled and scored from first on a Rich Severson double. Severson advanced to third on a pickoff error and scored on Hernandez' single, making it 2-2.
The Twins took the lead in the fifth when Tovar walked and Carew followed with a two-run homer. Kansas City cut the lead to 4-3 in the sixth when Keough singled, went to second on a ground out, took third on a wild pitch, and scored on a Hernandez single. The Twins went back up by two in the seventh when Tovar walked, Carew singled, and Tony Oliva had an RBI single.
The Royals again came back in the seventh. Paul Schaal reached on an error and Otis hit a two-out two-run homer to tie it 5-5. In the eighth, two walks and two wild pitches put men on second and third and Charlie Manuel had a pinch-hit sacrifice fly to put the Twins ahead. Killebrew homered for an insurance run in the ninth.
WP: Bill Zepp (1-0).
LP: Mike Hedlund (2-3).
S: Perranoski (10).
Notes: Renick was at third base, with Killebrew at first and Rich Reese on the bench. Reese pinch-hit for Renick in the eighth and went to first base, with Killebrew moving to third. Frank Quilici took over for Killebrew at third in the ninth.
Jim Holt replaced Brant Alyea in left field in the seventh. Manuel pinch-hit for George MItterwald, who was making a return to the lineup, in the eight inning. Paul Ratliff pinch-hit for pitcher Zepp in the eighth. Ratliff stayed in the game to catch, with Perranoski coming in to pitch.
Carew raised his average to .419. Oliva was 1-for-5 and was batting .326. Killebrew was 1-for-4 and was batting .319. Renick was 1-for-2 and was batting .313. Zepp struck out the only man he faced and had an ERA of 2.03. Perranoski had an ERA of 1.57.
Mitterwald was 0-for-3 and was batting .184.
Jim Kaat started and pitched 6.2 innings, giving up five runs (three earned) on nine hits and a walk and striking out three. Bill Butler started for Kansas City and pitched six innings, giving up five runs on six hits and six walks and striking out one.
The two pitchers who got the decisions combined to pitch one-third of an inning and face three batters. Zepp, as noted above, struck out the only man he faced. Hedlund faced two batters in the eighth and walked both of them, with the first coming around to score the go-ahead run.
Perranoski had appeared in fifteen of the Twins' thirty-three games, pitching 28.2 innings.
Hernandez had ten RBIs in 1970. Twenty percent of them came in this game.
Infielder Rich Severson was in his rookie year. He appeared in nearly half of the team's games, getting 240 at-bats and batting .250/.300/.317. He was back in AAA for most of 1971, getting just 33 at-bats with the big club. He was in AAA in 1972 and 1973, then he was done. He did not hit a lot in AAA either, batting .254 with an OPS of .637 over four seasons. He passed away in 2016 at the relatively young age of seventy-one.
Carew had six consecutive multi-hit games. He was 17-for-28 over that span, raising his average from .328 to .419. The .419 would be his high point for the season.
The Twins had won five in a row and eight of ten.
Record: The Twins were 23-10, in first place in the American League West, a half game ahead of California.