Under the lights for the first time all season. Rogowicz Field. When Jeff Whitehead and I arrived from Massachusetts an hour and a half before game time who was out prepping the field ? Lex Herlett. Pulling tarps. Raking. Tamping. Putting down the lines. And it was hot. And sticky. Nary a complaint from Lex. Hes a man in motion. On to the game itself. Herlett and Wayne Nicholsen are the starting pitchers for the Yankees and Twins respectively. Nicholsen back on the mound less than 24 hours after throwing 6 full the night before to win the 62 championship. He wanted the ball again and the Twins had very limited pitching options.

In a nutshell, the game was tied 3-3 with 2 outs in the bottom of the 4th when, as they say, the wheels came off the Twins cart. Errors, hits, a walk and it quickly went to 7-3 Yanks. Nicholsen was pitching fine but the defense needed to be tighter for the Twins. The Twins tacked on 3 more and a couple more for the home team made the final score 9-6 Yankees. Jeff Whitehead came on in fine relief for Nicholsen after 3 2/3 innings.

The Yankees were out hit 13-10, but 5 errors yielding 5 unearned runs sunk the Twins. I must note that Herlett was throwing very hard and the Twins were able to lay into a fair number of his fastballs but he had a very impressive 5th inning with his curveball striking out the Twins 1,2, and 3 hitters using the curve almost exclusively. Hard and sharp. For whatever reason, he found magic with his curve in the 5th. 4 strikeouts in the game for Lex, 3 of them in that one impressive inning.

Leading hitters for the Twins were Charlie Freer and Ricky Saidenberg with 3 hits each and Greg Briscoe with 2 hits. Rodney Smith had a long double in the left center gap in the 4th. Herlett led the Yankees offense with 3 hits while Chad Bowman stroked a triple in the 3rd.

-- Edited by crowbait on Thursday 7th of September 2023 10:45:24 AM