MINNESOTA 2, DETROIT 1 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Thursday, July 23.
Batting stars: George Mitterwald was 3-for-3 with a home run, his eighth. Rich Reese was 3-for-4.
Pitching star: Bert Blyleven pitched a complete game, giving up one run on four hits and three walks and striking out eight.
Opposition stars: Jim Northrup was 1-for-4 with a home run, his eighteenth. Joe Niekro pitched six innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on six hits and no walks and striking out one.
The game: In the second the Tigers got a pair of one-out walks and a two-out single, loading the bases, but did not score. The Twins got a pair of one-out singles in the fifth but did not score. So, it was 0-0 until the sixth, when Northrup homered with one out. The Twins got the run back in the bottom of the sixth. With one out Reese reached third on a single-plus-error and scored on a grounder to first.
Detroit again loaded the bases in the seventh but did not score. Mitterwald led off the bottom of the eighth in a home run to put the Twins up 2-1. The Tigers did not get a baserunner in the eighth or ninth, and the Twins' lead held up.
WP: Blyleven (4-3).
LP: Niekro (10-8).
S: None.
Notes: Jim Holt was in left in place of Brant Alyea. Frank Quilici was at second in place of Rod Carew. Paul Ratliff pinch-hit for Quilici in the seventh, with Danny Thompson going to second base.
Tony Oliva was 1-for-4 and was batting .319. Harmon Killebrew was 0-for-4 and was batting .315. Cesar Tovar was 0-for-4 and was batting .314. Blyleven had an ERA of 2.44.
Quilici was 0-for-1 and was batting .195.
The Twins once again did not score much for Blyleven, but he managed to make two runs be enough. The Tigers stranded eight men, six of them in two innings when they left the bases full.
Niekro had not yet become a knuckleball pitcher in 1970, relying mostly on fastballs and sliders at this point in his career.
The Twins had scored exactly two runs in each of their last three games, winning two of them 2-1. They were now 3-2 on their nine-game homestand, with four against Baltimore coming up.
Record: The Twins were 59-31, in first place in the American League West, five games ahead of California.