Game 139: Seattle Mariners (56-83) @ Minnesota Twins (77-61)

Wednesday September 7, 1988

The last place Mariners came into the Metrodome and took two out of three from a Twins team that needed to sweep the series to have any hope to catch the Oakland A’s.

Without Viola’s performance on Monday, it could very well have been a sweep. Allan Anderson seemed intent on equaling Viola’s performance, pitching eight innings of three-hit baseball. Unfortunately, the Twins offense was unable to score on Seattle. Mike Moore started the game and allowed just five hits in seven innings pitched. The Mariners’ bullpen got the team to the ninth inning.

With the game tied at zero, Seattle struck against Keith Atherton. Steve Balboni’s single scored Harold Reynolds to put the Mariners up by one.

The Twins tied the game on Gene Larkin’s sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth, but in the end it just prolonged the game. Reynolds’ double off of Jeff Reardon in the top of the 10th scored Quinones and gave the Mariners an eventual 2-1 win.

After the game, the focus was on Kelly’s decision to go the bullpen for the ninth inning.

But in the ninth, manager Tom Kelly pulled Anderson, entrusting his three-hitter to the bullpen. Although Reardon was throwing, Kelly brought in Keith Atherton first. “He (Anderson) had thrown 105 pitches and had a very long inning in the eighth, so I decided to take him out of the game,” said Kelly.

Anderson had no quarrel with that. “He told me he felt I pitched too good to lose the game,” Anderson said. “I’ve got to respect that. He didn’t want me to get into a situation where he’d have to pull me out.”

Kelly stayed with his format. When asked if he considered bringing in Reardon at 0-0 for the ninth, Kelly said: “We don’t do that. We don’t bring him in when we’re behind or the score is even. If we had gotten the lead in the last of the eighth, Reardon would have pitched the ninth.”

-John Gilbert, Star Tribune 9/8/1988

There was some good news for the Twins, though it might be listed in the “too little too late” category, but Gary Gaetti made an appearance in a game for the first time since August 15 when he pinch hit in the ninth inning.

Box

Player of the Game
Harold Reynolds

Team Name                        G    W    L    T   PCT    GB    RS   RA
Oakland Athletics              140   88   52    0  .629     -   690  537
Minnesota Twins                139   77   62    0  .554  10.5   663  589
Kansas City Royals             139   74   65    0  .532  13.5   618  550
California Angels              140   71   69    0  .507  17.0   640  657
Texas Rangers                  138   61   77    0  .442  26.0   547  642
Chicago White Sox              138   60   78    0  .435  27.0   554  676
Seattle Mariners               140   57   83    0  .407  31.0   580  666