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Keeping Track

1970 Rewind: Game Seventy-six

MINNESOTA 2, OAKLAND 1 IN OAKLAND

Date:  Monday, July 6.

Batting star:  Cesar Tovar was 3-for-5 with a stolen base, his nineteenth.

Pitching stars:  Bill Zepp pitched 6.1 innings, giving up one run on three hits and five walks and striking out one.  Ron Perranoski struck out five in 2.2 scoreless innings, giving up two hits and a walk.

Opposition stars:  Diego Segui pitched four innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on six hits and three walks and striking out three.  Bob Locker pitched two shutout innings, giving up a hit and a walk and striking out one.   Mudcat Grant struck out two in two shutout innings, giving up a hit and a walk.

The game:  The Twins got a man to third with one out in the first but did not score.  In the second, Sal Bando walked and Tommy Davis was hit by a pitch.  A double play moved Bando to third and Dave Duncan's RBI single put the Athletics ahead 1-0.

The Twins tied it in the third.  Tovar hit a one-out single, and two-out singles by Tony Oliva and Harmon Killebrew produced a run.  In the fourth Leo Cardenas walked and two-out singles by Zepp and Tovar produced a run, putting the Twins ahead 2-1.

And that was it for scoring.  Oakland had their chances.  They had men on first and third in the fifth.  They had a man on second with one out in the sixth.  They had men on first and second with two out in the seventh.  But none of them scored, and the Twins took a 2-1 victory.

WP:  Zepp (4-0).

LP:  Segui (3-5).

S:  Perranoski (19).

Notes:  Danny Thompson was at second base in place of Rod Carew.  Jim Holt was in left in place of Brant Alyea.  Oddly, in a one-run game, the Twins did not put in a defensive substitute for Killebrew.

Oliva was 1-for-4 and was batting .325.  Tovar was batting .316.  Killebrew was 1-for-3 and was batting .313.  Zepp had an ERa of 2.53.  Perranoski had an ERA of 1.67,

It was Zepp's first start since May 30.  He would stay in the rotation until almost the end of the season.  Bill Rigney was obviously not concerned about "stretching him out", as he pitched 6.1 innings.

John McNamara had a pretty quick hook on Segui, pulling him one batter into the fifth inning when he had given up just two runs.  He had allowed a lot of baserunners (nine), and maybe McNamara thought he'd pushed his luck as far as he could.  It was only Segui's fourth start of the season, as he'd been in the bullpen earlier.  He'd gone seven innings in each of his first two starts, so again, "stretching him out" doesn't seem to have been a concern.  He'd gone only 1.1 innings in his third start, and gave up four runs, so maybe the manager just didn't have much confidence in him.

Ex-Twin Mudcat Grant was having an excellent year out of the Oakland bullpen.  After this game his ERA was 0.87.  To no one's surprise, he couldn't do that over the whole season, but he ended up 8-3, 24 saves, 1.86 ERA, 1.06 WHIP.  He also ended up in Pittsburgh, as he was traded in mid-September.

Also playing for Oakland was ex-Twin Don Mincher.  He went 0-for-4 and was batting just .228.  He would raise that to .248 by season's end, and would hit 27 home runs.

The next-to-last batter of the game was a pinch-hitter named Tony LaRussa.  I suppose I've heard that LaRussa played in the majors, but I didn't know anything about his career.  As it turns out, there's not much to know.  He first came up to the Kansas City Athletics as an eighteen-year-old and was used mostly as a pinch-runner/defensive replacement, going 11-for-44 in 34 games.  He did not make it back to the majors until 1968.  1970 is when he got most of his big league playing time, batting .198/.301/.255 in 52 games (106 at-bats).  For his career he batted .199/.292/.250 in 132 games (176 at-bats).

The Twins had won seven of eight games.  This was the first of a ten-game road trip that would take them to Oakland, California, and Baltimore.  The Baltimore leg of the trip would come after the all-star break.

Record:  The Twins were 50-26, in first place in the American League West, four games ahead of California.

Keeping Track

1970 Rewind: Game Sixty-seven

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MINNESOTA 9, CHICAGO 1 IN CHICAGO (GAME 1 OF DOUBLEHEADER)

Date:  Sunday, June 28.

Batting stars:  Jim Holt was 3-for-4.  Leo Cardenas was 3-for-5.  Cesar Tovar was 3-for-5.  Harmon Killebrew was 2-for-4 with two home runs (his nineteenth and twentieth) and three RBIs.  Tony Oliva was 2-for-5 with a home run (his tenth), two home runs, and two RBIs.

Pitching stars:  Tom Hall struck out seven in 6.2 innings, giving up one run on seven hits and two walks.  Bill Zepp pitched 2.1 scoreless innings, giving up two hits.

Opposition stars:  Luis Aparicio was 2-for-4 with a double.  Walt Williams was 2-for-5.  Jim Magnuson pitched two perfect innings, striking out one.

The game:  Consecutive singles by Paul Ratliff, Holt, and Danny Thompson put the Twins on the board in the second.  In the third Oliva hit a two-out single and Killebrew followed with a two-run homer, making it 3-0.

The Twins continued to build the lead.  In the fourth Holt singled, went to second on a ground out, and scored on a Hall single.  Singles by Tovar and Cardenas followed, making it 5-0 Twins.  Oliva homered leading off the sixth to make it 6-0.

The White Sox had two singles leading off the first and had a single and a walk in the fifth, but otherwise did not threaten through six innings.  Finally in the seventh, Ken Berry hit a one-out single.  With two down Williams singled and Aparicio followed with an RBI double, getting Chicago on the board at 6-1.

That was all the White Sox did, though.  In the eighth Killebrew homered.  Later in the inning Ratliff walked, went to third on a Holt single, and scored on a sacrifice fly.  In the ninth Tovar singled, took third on a Cardenas single, and scored on a fielder's choice to bring the total to 9-1.

WP:  Hall (3-2).

LP:  Joel Horlen (6-9).

S:  Zepp (1).

Notes:  Ratliff was at catcher in place of George Mitterwald.  Holt was once again in left in place of Brant Alyea.  Thompson was again at second in place of Rod Carew.  Frank Quilici came in for defense in the eighth, going to second with Thompson moving to third and Killebrew coming out of the game.  Herman Hill pinch-ran for Oliva in the ninth and remained in the game in right field.

Oliva was batting .322.  Killebrew was batting .306.  Hall had an ERA of 2.23.  Zepp had an ERA of 2.55.

Quilici was 0-for-1 and was batting .169.

This was the first start of the season for Hall.  They clearly weren't worried about stretching him out, as he pitched 6.2 innings.  He had pitched multiple innings in relief several times, pitching more than three innings five times, with a high of five innings.  He had pitched 3.2 innings as recently as June 25.  He was not taking anyone's place in the rotation at this point, but instead was making a spot start due to a doubleheader.

This was the first career save for Zepp.  He would end up with four, two in 1970 and two in 1971.  The save rule was clearly different then, as he entered the game with two out in the seventh with the Twins leading 6-1.

Horlen pitched five innings, allowing six runs on twelve hits and no walks and striking out one.  Horlen was having the worst year of his career.  He would not win a game the rest of the season, finishing 6-16, 4.86, 1.39 WHIP.  The weak Chicago offense didn't help him--in his next six starts, the White Sox would score a total of eight runs, with a high of two.  He missed all of August, leading one to believe he may have been pitching with an injury much of the season.  He had pitched over two hundred innings in six consecutive seasons prior to 1970, when he pitched 172.  He was a fine pitcher from 1963-1969, and also had a good year out of the bullpen for Oakland in 1972, his last season.

After scoring nine runs over their previous four games, the Twins scored eighteen in their next two.  That's baseball.

Record:  The Twins were 43-24, in first place in the American League West, three and a half games ahead of California.