Tag: Rod Carew

The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 29 – Twins losing streak finally over

According to manager Cal Ermer about 1/3 of the Twins roster was a bit lighter in the wallet after Ermer fined them for curfew violations. The Twins who took on  the Yankees in a scheduled doubleheader today were on a 8 game winless streak which included yesterdays tie game.

In game one,Twins left fielder Bob Allison batting lead-off, hit a home run off Yankee starter Steve Barber but it turned out to be the only run the Twins would score, it was the fifth consecutive game, all losses, that the Twins would score just the one run. The Yankees won the game 6-1 with Joe Pepitone hitting two home runs and Steve Whitaker contributing another. Twins starter Jim Perry took the defeat.

Game two however; had a happier ending but the Twins had to play 18 innings before they could finally say their eight game losing streak was over with a 3-2 win over the Bronx bombers.

The Yankees scored 2 runs in the bottom of the fifth inning off Twins starter Jim Merritt and the Twins scored one in the second and one in the sixth of Yankee starter Fred Talbot and no one crossed home plate after that until the top of the 18th inning when Rich Rollins singled off Yankee reliever Thad Tillotson to score Rod Carew with an unearned run on the Yankees third error of the game.

Twins starter Jim Merritt pitched the first 13 innings for the Twins and came away with a ND. Al Worthington was credited with the win and Jim Roland notched his first save of the season.

The 18 inning game was the longest the Twins had ever played to that point in their history. In terms of time the game only lasted 4 hours and 24 minutes.

The 8 game winless streak which included a tie game would be the longest the Twins would encounter in 1967.

The Yankees second pitcher of the game Bill Monbouquette pitched 9 innings of scoreless relief allowing just 3 hits and a walk.

Cesar Tovar and Yankee Roy White who both went 0 for 8 would just as soon forget this game was ever played.

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The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.

The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 27 – Jose Cardenal and the Angels steal a 2-1 win

The Twins lose to the California Angels on the road again and it is the same old story, they lose 2-1 for the third day in a row and they have lost all five game on this current road trip and six in a row. Ermer’s boys find themselves in fifth place 3 1/2 games behind the leaders and 4-7 since the All-Star break.

The Twins could only muster three hits off Angels spitballer Jack Hamilton who is 5-1 since being acquired from the Mets and Minnie Rojas who earned the save with 3 innings of scoreless relief while allowing just 1 hit. Dean Chance pitched well enough to win for Minnesota but allowed 2 unearned runs in the third. Bobby Knoop reached on a Rod Carew error, Hamilton sacrificed Knoop to second. Jose Cardenal singled scoring Knoop from second. Cardenal then stole second and went to third on a wild pitch. Chance then struck out Roger Repoz for the second out and that brought Woodie Held to the plate who was batting when Cardenal stole home and Chance then struck out Held but it was too late, the run would turn out to be the winner.

With their tails between their legs the Twins now have to fly from California to New York to play the New York Yankees but first they need to make a detour to Milwaukee to play the Chicago White Sox in a meaningless exhibition game before continuing their road trip and pennant race. No way the players union would allow something like that now days but that is the way it was back then.

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The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.

The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 24 – Twins take two from White Sox

After the White Sox took the first two games from the Minnesota Twins, 31, 141 fans packed White Sox Park to see the home town nine take two more from the visiting Twins. But, it was not to be, after spotting the Whitey’s a one run lead the Twins tied it in the fourth inning and then scored 2 in the 5th, 6th, and 8th innings and held on for a 7-4 win in game one. Jim Kaat hit his first home run of the season.  Zoilo Versalles had 3 hits and Rich Rollins, Bob Allison and Jim Kaat each had 2 hits. Jim Kaat took home the win and Ron Kline registered the save. Box Score

In game two the Twins were out hit 8 to 6 but managed to out score the White Sox 5 to 1 and a double-header sweep was in the books. Dave Boswell was credited with the victory to even his record at 8-8 and Al Worthington notched his 12th save of the season. When the day was done the Twins still found themselves in third place but now only 2.5 games behind the league leading WSox but only a half game behind the Tigers at the All-Star break. Box Score

Pitcher Dean Chance along with Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva and Rod Carew (who missed the week-end series due to military obligations) left for the All-Star game in Anaheim after the DH was complete and were accompanied by manager Cal Ermer and owner Calvin Griffith.

 

The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.

The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 20 – June comes to an end, Ermer, Kaat

L-R: Killebrew, Carew, Tovar and Versalles

The Minnesota Twins end June 36-34 record and in third place, 7 games behind the league leading Chicago White Sox and just one and a half a games behind the second place Detroit Tigers. Although the team has not put together any long winning streak, they have not lost back-to-back games since May 30th.

 

With the 1967 All-Star game just 11 days away, the Twins know they have a tough row to hoe before they get a few days off as they have three doubleheaders to play before taking time off for the mid-summer classic. That will be 11 games in 9 days.

New Twins manager Cal Ermer has a new plan in mind for Twins starting pitchers that maybe today’s Twins should implement. You can read about it in the Sporting News article below.

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The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.

The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 19 – Twins beat Red Sox as Boswell strikes out 13, four Twins named to AS team

Dave Boswell

The Twins scored an unearned run in the bottom of the seventh inning on George Scott‘s second error of the game and went on to win 3-2 at the Met. Twins starter Dave Boswell struck out a personal best 13 batters and evened his record at 5-5 in pitching a complete game even though he gave up home runs to Jerry Adair and Reggie Smith in the fifth that tied the game at the time. The Twins took the well pitched series two games to one as no team scored more than 3 runs in any of the three games. The 36-34 Twins who are still seven games out of first now await the arrival of the 32-41 Washington Senators.

MLB announced the Minnesota Twins players Dean Chance, Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva and rookie Rod Carew had been selected for the 1967 All-Star game scheduled for July 11 in Anaheim.

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The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.

The 1967 AL pennant race – Part 16 – Twins and Tigers play nine and end up in a tie

The Twins had a 5-2 lead after five innings of play at Tiger Stadium but the Tigers scored one in sixth and two in the seventh to tie the game at 5 apiece. The game was finally called a draw in the top of the ninth with Harmon Killebrew at the plate with two strikes and one out after Rod Carew led off the top of the ninth with a single but was caught stealing. The game had four rain delays and was called around midnight CDT. Box Score.

The Star Tribune pages below will tell  you more about the Twins/Tigers game, a brawl in New York between the Yanks and Red Sox and more about the disagreement on the Twins bus between Tony Oliva and Ted Uhlaender that was supposedly instigated by Dave Boswell. At the end of the day the Twins were 32-31 and 6.5 games behind the high-flying Chicago White Sox.

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A nice picture of Tiger Stadium

The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.

 

The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 14 – Tigers score 10 in the sixth, Carew and Boswell

AL Standings after play on June 15, 1967

Between June 1 and June 15 the Twins fired (Sam Mele) and hired a manager (Cal Ermer) and went 10-6 playing all but one of the games at the friendly confines of Met Stadium. The team managed to pick-up 2.5 games in the standings but they still find themselves trailing the Chicago White Sox by four games.

June 13 wasn’t a great day in spite of the fact that the Twins scored in double-figures for the third day in a row and found themselves on the losing end of a 15-10 game. The Twins and Dean Chance were up 5-1 going into the sixth inning against the Detroit Tigers at the Met when the “S%#@” hit the fan, Chance gave up four singles and walked two before skipper Cal Ermer had seen enough and brought in reliever Jim Ollom who promptly gave up a single and a walk and he too found himself headed for the shower as Mudcat Grant came in to stop the bleeding. Three singles later Grant was gone and Jim Roland took the mound and promptly threw a wild pitch to allow another run, a passed ball followed which led to a sac fly, another Twins error kept the nightmare inning alive before Roland finally got the third out of the inning. When the smoke cleared the Tigers had put a 10 spot on the Twins and led the game 11 to 5. That would be 10 runs on 8 singles, three walks, two Twins errors, a wild pitch and a passed ball and a partridge in a pear tree. OMG! What we had here was the first time in Twins history that an opponent had scored 10 or more runs against the Twins in a single inning. The Twins bounced back with 5 runs of their own in the bottom of the inning to make it an 11-10 game but the Tigers scored 3 in the seventh and another in the eighth inning and the final score was 15-10 for the Tigers.

Here a couple of clippings out of the June 14, 1967 Minneapolis Tribune Sports section describing the action.

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The June 10, 1967 Sporting News has a nice piece about Rod Carew and his base running problems and this time pitching coach Early Wynn puts Dave Boswell through his “wringer” method of fixing a pitchers problems.

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The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.

The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 11 – Back-to-back walk-off victories & Bob Allison

LF Bob Allison played for the Senators/Twins from 1958-1970

June 4 – Bob Allison drove in Ted Uhlaender from third base with a squeeze bunt in the bottom of the 10th inning in an 8-7 win over the Angels after blowing a 7-3 lead in the seventh inning. Jim Perry got his first win of the season and Minnie Rojas took the defeat. Box Score

June 5 – Bob Allison is again the star as the Twins have their second walk-off win in two days, this time the victim is the Cleveland Indians. With the score tied at 4-4 since the sixth inning the Twins face Indians reliever Steve Bailey in the bottom of the ninth. Bailey gets pinch-hitter Ted Uhlaender to ground out but then walks Cesar Tovar, Rod Carew singles with Tovar advancing to second bring up Rich Rollins to advances both runners by getting thrown out C-1B. With two runners on and two out Tribe manager Joe Adcock decides to give Harmon Killebrew a free pass to first bringing up Bob Allison. Bailey throws a wild pitch past catcher Duke Sims and the Twins win game number 24 putting them one game over the .500 mark. Al Worthington gets the win in relief. At the end of the day the Twins find themselves in 5th place and five games behind the league leading Detroit Tigers. Box Score 

The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.

What just happened?

Here is what the May 29 Twins GameNotes say about yesterdays game:

The Twins lost to the Rays yesterday by a score of 8-6 in 15 innings, losing the three-game series two games to one. At six hours and 26 minutes, the game marked the longest game in Target Field history and the second-longest game in the history of the Twins (longest: six hours and 36 minutes on May 7, 1995 at Cleveland). The loss to Tampa was Minnesota’s longest game by innings since April 24, 2016 at Washington (16 innings). The Twins/Rays game was the longest game in the major leagues this season (previously: 6:05 by New York-AL at Chicago-NL on May 7).

It marked the Twins first loss in which Minnesota led in the ninth inning (previously 25-0).

Twins pitchers struck out a season-high 17 batters, their most since recording 19
strikeouts August 19, 2007 vs. Texas.

Mauer

Joe Mauer drew three walks to pass Kent Hrbek for second on the Twins all-time list
(840), trailing Harmon Killebrew (1,321). Mauer hit his 133rd career home run, moving him past Jacque Jones for 11th place on the Twins all-time list. He recorded a season-high
four hits and reached base a career-high seven times, becoming the second Twin ever
to reach base seven-plus times in a game, joining Rod Carew (8 times on May 12, 1972
vs. Milwaukee).

Some other facts about the loss to Tampa yesterday:

The announced crowd for the game was 28,951, Twins manager Paul Molitor guessed about 1,500 stayed to watch what turned out to be a bitter ending for Minnesota.

Twins used nine pitchers tying a franchise record equaled on five other occasions.

The total pitch count for the Rays and Twins was 553 pitches (289 by Minnesota).

With a burnt out bullpen the Twins made two moves this morning, putting Justin Haley on the 10-day DL and sending Kennys Vargas to AAA Rochester. The Twins called up pitchers Drew Rucinski and Jason Wheeler who has yet to make his big league debut.

Box score for Twins vs Rays game on May 28, 2017

The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 8 – Chance, Ollom, Carew and cold weather

AL Standings as of April 15, 1967

 

On Monday, May 15, 1967 the Minnesota Twins found themselves on the way to Chicago to play the 18-7 first place Chicago White Sox. Sam Mele’s bunch had just completed a two-week home stand in the cold Minnesota weather and the team played 6-5 baseball. But now the Twins were now on a three-game losing skid and their record stood at 11-15, tied for eighth place and 7 1/2 games out of the league lead. The highest attendance at any of the 11 home games in early May against the likes of the Yankees, Red Sox, Senators and Athletics was just 11,864.

One of the highlights of their recent home-stand was watching Rod Carew go 5 for 5 on May 8 against the Washington Senators but unfortunately the Senators scored six in the top of the seventh inning and won the game 7-4. Carew became the first Twins player to go 5 for 5 at Met Stadium.

The Twins were struggling, they had five hitters (Tony Oliva, Bob Allison, Russ Nixon, Rich Rollins, Early Battey) hitting under 2.25. Starter Dave Boswell had a 9.50 ERA in four starts. Rumors were flying that manager Sam Mele’s job was at risk.

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The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.