Tag Archives: stealing bases

Keeping Track

1991 Rewind: Game One Hundred Forty-nine

MINNESOTA 8, TEXAS 4 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Saturday, September 21.

Batting stars:  Brian Harper was 2-for-3 with two doubles, a walk, two runs, and two RBIs.  Kirby Puckett was 2-for-4 with a walk and two runs.  Dan Gladden was 2-for-5 with a stolen base, his fourteenth.  Kent Hrbek was 1-for-4 with a two-run homer, his eighteenth.

Pitching star:  Kevin Tapani pitched a complete game, allowing four runs on eight hits and no walks and striking out six.  He threw 105 pitches.

Opposition stars:  Rafael Palmeiro was 2-for-4 with a home run (his twenty-fifth), a double, and two runs.  Julio Franco was 2-for-4 with a stolen base, his thirtieth.  Jack Daugherty was 1-for-4 with a home run.

The game:  With two out in the first inning, Puckett singled and Hrbek followed with a two-run homer.  It stayed 2-0 until the fourth, when Franco singled and Palmeiro doubled, putting men on second and third with none out.  Ruben Sierra singled in a run and another run scored on a double play, tying the score 2-2.

The Twins took the lead right back in the bottom of the fourth.  Chili Davis had a one-out single and stole second (!).  Harper doubled him home and later scored on a Mike Pagliarulo single to put the Twins up 4-2.  The Twins added two more in the fifth.  With one out, Chuck Knoblauch walked, Puckett singled, and Hrbek walked, loading the bases.  A force out scored one run and a Harper double brought home another, increasing the Twins' lead to 6-2.

The Rangers never really got back into the game.  Palmeiro homered in the sixth to cut the lead to 6-3, but in the seventh Scott Leius delivered a two-out two-run double to put it up to 8-3.  Daugherty homered in the eighth to make it 8-4, but that was as close as Texas would come.

WP:  Tapani (16-8).  LP:  Jose Guzman (12-6).  S:  None.

Notes:  Leius pinch-hit for Pagliarulo in the seventh and stayed in the game at third base.  Jarvis Brown pinch-ran for Puckett in the eighth and stayed in the game in center field.

Puckett raised his average to .323.  Harper went up to .313.  Shane Mack was 1-for-4 and was batting .309.  Tapani's ERA went up to 2.87.

Guzman started for the Rangers and pitched 6.2 innings.  He allowed eight runs on ten hits and four walks.  He struck out three and threw 125 pitches.  I don't know if the Texas bullpen was overtaxed, so they needed him to fill up innings, but that seems like a lot of pitching when you're not pitching that well.

By this time in his career, Gladden was not that much of a base stealer any more.  He would end the year with fifteen, the lowest total of his career to that point.  He would play two more seasons, but would steal only twelve more bases.  In his best years he was a decent, but not great, percentage base stealer.  For his career he was 222-315, which is 70.4%.

I remembered Julio Franco as a good ballplayer, but not as a basestealer.  1991 was his best year, with 36, but he topped thirty three other times.  He was 281-388 for his career, which is 72.4%.

This was Daugherty's only home run in 1991 and one of ten for his career.  Six of them came in 1990, which was the only time he got over 150 at-bats in a season.

The White Sox lost to California 4-3, increasing the Twins lead and getting us all to start thinking of magic numbers, if we weren't doing so already.

Record:  The Twins were 89-60, in first place in the American League West, seven games ahead of Chicago.  The Twins' magic number was seven.

In the East, Toronto lost and Boston won, dropping the Blue Jays' lead to just a half game.

Keeping Track

1991 Rewind: Game One Hundred Three

NEW YORK 8, MINNESOTA 3 IN NEW YORK

Date:  Thursday, August 1.

Batting stars:  Shane Mack was 2-for-3 with a home run (his twelfth) and a walk.  Chuck Knoblauch was 2-for-4.  Chili Davis was 1-for-3 with a home run (his twenty-fourth) and a walk.

Pitching star:  Terry Leach pitched three shutout innings of relief, giving up three hits and striking out two.

Opposition stars:  Greg Cadaret pitched seven innings, giving up two runs on six hits and three walks and striking out six.  Bernie Williams was 2-for-3 with two walks and two runs.  Matt Nokes was 2-for-4 with two home runs (his nineteenth and twentieth) and three RBIs.

The game:  Williams led off the bottom of the first with a walk and Don Mattingly got a one-out single, putting men on first and third.  Mel Hall hit a sacrifice fly to score one run and Nokes hit a two-run homer to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead.  It went to 6-0 in the second.  An error, a bunt, and a walk put men on first and third with one out.  Williams had an RBI single, and error scored another run, and a sacrifice fly brought home a third.

The Twins got on the board in the third as Greg Gagne led off with a double and Dan Gladden singled.  Gladden was caught stealing for the second time in the game, however, so the two singles that followed did not produce another run.  In the fourth Alvaro Espinoza singled, Williams walked, and Steve Sax singled to make it 7-1.  Nokes homered again in the fifth to make it 8-1.

The Twins got a couple more runs on solo homers to make the final score look a little better.  Davis homered leading off the sixth and Mack homered leading off the ninth.  At no point did it look like the Twins might get back into the game.

WP:  Cadaret (4-4).  LP:  Paul Abbott (3-1).  S:  None.

Notes:  It was a standard lineup.  Al Newman went into the game at shortstop in the seventh inning, replacing Gagne.

Kirby Puckett was 1-for-4 and was batting .331.  Brian Harper was 0-for-4 and fell to .311.  Leach lowered his ERA to 2.86.

Gladden stole fifteen bases in 1991, but was caught nine times.

Abbott lasted just 1.1 innings, giving up five runs (three earned) on two hits and two walks and struck out one.  Tom Kelly gave him a really quick hook.  Yes, he gave up three runs in the first, but it's not like they were smacking him all over the yard--the homer by Nokes is the thing that hurt him.  Then in the second, an error, a sac bunt, a walk, and he's gone.  It was the last start of the season for him.

Mack had an eight-game hitting streak.  He was 16-for-32 with three doubles, two triples, and three home runs.  He raised his average from .264 to .294 and his slugging average from .455 to .528.

Gladden also had an eight-game hitting streak.  He was 14-for-36 with three doubles and a home run.  He raised his average from .259 to .276.

This was Bernie Williams' rookie season.  I'd forgotten that he often batted leadoff when he first came up.  He wasn't all that good at it, batting just .219.  He did, however, draw a lot of walks, giving him an OBP of .328.  He would, of course, go on to have an excellent career.

Chris Berman's time has come and gone, but I did always like Greg "life is a"  Cadaret.

The White Sox defeated Texas 13-2 to move closer to the Twins.

Record:  The Twins were 61-42, in first place in the American League West, two games ahead of Chicago.