Box Score of the Week

Minnesota Twins at Cleveland Indians - September 28, 1984.

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With four games remaining in the 1984 season, the Twins were 1-1/2 games behind the American League West Division leading Kansas City Royals. If the Twins could, at minimum, take 3 of 4 from the pitiful Indians in that final series of the year, they'd win the West if the Royals got swept in Oakland. But if the Twins took all four games, the A's would only have to take 2 of 3 against KC. 

On Thursday night, the Twins kicked away a 3-0 eighth inning lead, culminated by light hitting catcher Jamie Quirk (in literally his first and only at bat for Cleveland that year) hitting a walk off homer in the 9th for a 4-3 Indians win.

Now to this week's featured game, which occurred the following night. 

It appeared the Twins would live to fight another day as they were up 10-0 in the third inning with ace starter Frank Viola on the mound. With the score 10-2 in the bottom of the 6th, the Tribe started to chip away with 3 more runs to make it 10-5. With two outs and runners at 2nd and 3rd, relief pitcher Rick Lysander induced Julio Franco to hit a ground ball to third baseman Gary Gaetti. However, the normally sure fielding Gaetti booted the ball, allowing another run to score to make it 10-6. The Indians would tack on three more unearned runs to get within 10-9. 

From there, a complete unraveling felt inevitable. Sure enough, Cleveland's Joe Carter hit a game-tying solo homer in the 8th.  To cap off a miserable 24 hours, Brett Butler hit a bases loaded single in the 9th for an 11-10 Indians win. The Royals would defeat Oakland a few hours later to officially end the Twins' unexpected '84 postseason contention. 

Before the 2024 season, my belief was that final weekend in 1984 was the Twins' most gut-wrenching (and in some ways inexplicable) collapse, capped off by kicking away a 10-0 lead against a lousy opponent. I now consider that meltdown #2 in Twins history. 

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