Between May 16 and June 1 the Twins went 10-7 playing all but three games on the road in Chicago, California, Kansas City, New York and Boston. During that same time period Twins starter Dean Chance was on a roll, he beat the White Sox with a complete game 1-0 shutout, beat the Angels 7-2 with another complete game, lost to the White Sox 7-2, beat the Kansas City A’s 4-3 with 7 plus innings, and shut out the Red Sox 4-0 with another complete game effort bringing his record to 9-2.
On May 21 the Twins putting a good whipping on the California Angels by beating them 12-3 at Anaheim Stadium. Cesar Tovar was the hitting star when he became the first Twins player to ever get four XBH in a game when he went four for six with two doubles and two home runs.
The Twins had three home games in the midst of 14 road games against the league leading Chicago White Sox and Sam Mele‘s boys lost two of three to the Pale Hose. When June 1 rolled around the Twins found themselves just one game under .500 at 21-22 and 5 1/2 games behind league leading Chicago who was just percentage points ahead of Detroit.
Sporting News May 20, 1967 P21
The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.
He (Kaat) went through pitching coach Early Wynn’s “wringer cure”, which consists of throwing until “he’s worn out.” Then he was to return to his natural way of throwing.
But this obviously didn’t help.
Wow. Hard to believe this was a ‘cure’. I wonder how long a pitching coach would retain his job if he tried that with pitchers today.
Probably not too long but I think I understand Wynn’s logic. If a guy has been pitching well for a long time and now he is out of sync, if he throws enough, he will revert to his natural pitching mechanics. That of course assumes there is no injury that is continues causing him to alter his mechanics. Since I am old I must think like the old timers.