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1972 Minnesota Twins season

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1972 Minnesota Twins
LeagueAmerican League
DivisionWest
BallparkMetropolitan Stadium
CityBloomington, Minnesota
OwnersCalvin Griffith (majority owner, with Thelma Griffith Haynes)
General managersCalvin Griffith
ManagersBill Rigney, Frank Quilici
TelevisionWTCN-TV
(Halsey Hall, Frank Buetel, Lynn Faris)
Radio830 WCCO AM
(Herb Carneal, Halsey Hall, Ray Christensen)
← 1971 Seasons 1973 →

The 1972 Minnesota Twins finished 77–77, third in the American League West.

Offseason

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Regular season

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Armed Forces Day at Metropolitan Stadium, 1972.

On May 12, in a twenty-two inning match which concluded a day later, Danny Thompson went 0 for 10 with a sacrifice bunt, dropping his batting average 39 points over one game. He and César Tovar set a team record with their eleven plate appearances.

After a slow start, manager Bill Rigney was replaced by Frank Quilici in early July.

On July 9, Rich Reese hit his third pinch-hit grand slam home run, tying a major league record in doing so.

Rothsay, Minnesota, native Dave Goltz made his major league debut on July 18 – he is the first Minnesotan drafted by the Minnesota Twins to make the big league club. He gave up one hit in 3+23 innings.

Only one Twin made the All-Star Game: second baseman Rod Carew.

On July 31, pitcher Bert Blyleven gave up two inside-the-park home runs, both to the Chicago White Sox Dick Allen. When this next occurs in the major leagues (October 4, 1986), Blyleven is again on the mound. But the feat is accomplished this time by his Minnesota teammate Greg Gagne.

When César Tovar hit for the cycle on September 19, he finished with a game-ending home run. The only other player to do that in history was Ken Boyer (1961).[3] In later years, and after such a hit became known as a "walk-off home run", the feat was duplicated by George Brett (1979),[4] Dwight Evans (1984),[5] and Carlos González (2010). Tovar is just the second Twin to hit for the cycle, after Rod Carew in 1970; eight more Twins will do so by 2009.

Carew won his second AL batting title with a .318 average, but did not hit any home runs during the season. Previously, Zach Wheat was the last player to accomplish this feat when he won the 1918 NL batting title with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Bobby Darwin showed potential as a hitter with 22 HR and 80 RBI, but that did not make up for age and injuries taking their toll on other players. (Those numbers were also suppressed by his Twins-record 145 strikeouts.) Harmon Killebrew hit 26 HR (4th in the league) but drove in only 75 runs. Tony Oliva's bad knees limited him to only 10 games. César Tovar led the team with 86 runs scored. Four pitchers had double digit wins: Bert Blyleven (17–17), Dick Woodson (14–14), Jim Perry (13–16), and Jim Kaat (10–2). Kaat also won his 11th Gold Glove Award.

797,901 fans attended Twins games, the seventh highest total in the American League. It was almost half the number of fans that had attended just a few seasons earlier.

Season standings

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AL West
Team W L Pct. GB Home Road
Oakland Athletics 93 62 .600 48‍–‍29 45‍–‍33
Chicago White Sox 87 67 .565 55‍–‍23 32‍–‍44
Minnesota Twins 77 77 .500 15½ 42‍–‍32 35‍–‍45
Kansas City Royals 76 78 .494 16½ 44‍–‍33 32‍–‍45
California Angels 75 80 .484 18 44‍–‍36 31‍–‍44
Texas Rangers 54 100 .351 38½ 31‍–‍46 23‍–‍54

Record vs. opponents

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Sources: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
Team BAL BOS CAL CWS CLE DET KC MIL MIN NYY OAK TEX
Baltimore 7–11 6–6 8–4 8–10 10–8 6–6 10–5 6–6 7–6 6–6 6–6
Boston 11–7 8–4 6–6 8–7 5–9 6–6 11–7 4–8 9–9 9–3 8–4
California 6–6 4–8 7–11 8–4 5–7 9–6 7–5 7–8 4–8 8–10 10–7
Chicago 4–8 6–6 11–7 8–4 5–7 8–9 9–3 8–6 7–5 7–8 14–4
Cleveland 10–8 7–8 4–8 4–8 10–8 6–6 5–10 8–4 7–11 2–10 9–3
Detroit 8–10 9–5 7–5 7–5 8–10 7–5 10–8 9–3 7–9 4–8 10–2
Kansas City 6–6 6–6 6–9 9–8 6–6 5–7 7–5 9–9 7–5 7–11 8–6
Milwaukee 5–10 7–11 5–7 3–9 10–5 8–10 5–7 4–8 9–9 4–8 5–7
Minnesota 6–6 8–4 8–7 6–8 4–8 3–9 9–9 8–4 6–6 8–9 11–7
New York 6–7 9–9 8–4 5–7 11–7 9–7 5–7 9–9 6–6 3–9 8–4
Oakland 6–6 3–9 10–8 8–7 10–2 8–4 11–7 8–4 9–8 9–3 11–4
Texas 6–6 4–8 7–10 4–14 3–9 2–10 6–8 7–5 7–11 4–8 4–11


Notable transactions

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Roster

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1972 Minnesota Twins
Roster
Pitchers Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders Manager

Coaches

Player stats

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= Indicates team leader

Batting

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Starters by position

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Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in

Pos Player G AB H Avg. HR RBI
C Glenn Borgmann 56 175 41 .234 3 14
1B Harmon Killebrew 139 433 100 .231 26 74
2B Rod Carew 142 535 170 .318 0 51
SS Danny Thompson 144 573 158 .276 4 48
3B Eric Soderholm 93 287 54 .188 13 39
LF Steve Brye 100 253 61 .241 0 12
CF Bobby Darwin 145 513 137 .267 22 80
RF César Tovar 141 548 145 .265 2 31

Other batters

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Note: G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in

Player G AB H Avg. HR RBI
Steve Braun 121 402 116 .289 2 50
Jim Nettles 102 235 48 .204 4 15
Rich Reese 132 197 43 .218 5 26
George Mitterwald 64 163 30 .184 1 8
Phil Roof 61 146 30 .205 3 12
Charlie Manuel 63 122 25 .205 1 8
Rick Renick 55 93 16 .172 4 8
Dan Monzon 55 55 15 .273 0 5
Rick Dempsey 25 40 8 .200 0 0
Tony Oliva 10 28 9 .321 0 1
Jim Holt 10 27 12 .444 1 6
Mike Adams 3 6 2 .333 0 0
Bucky Guth 3 3 0 .000 0 0

Pitching

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Starting pitchers

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Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

Player G IP W L ERA SO
Bert Blyleven 39 287.1 17 17 2.73 228
Dick Woodson 36 251.2 14 14 2.72 150
Jim Perry 35 217.2 13 16 3.35 85
Jim Kaat 15 113.1 10 2 2.06 64
Dave Goltz 15 91.0 3 3 2.67 38

Other pitchers

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Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

Player G IP W L ERA SO
Ray Corbin 31 161.2 8 9 2.62 83

Relief pitchers

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Note: G = Games pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; SV = Saves; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

Player G W L SV ERA SO
Wayne Granger 63 4 6 19 3.01 45
Dave LaRoche 62 5 7 10 2.83 79
Jim Strickland 25 3 1 3 2.50 30
Tom Norton 21 0 1 0 2.78 22
Bob Gebhard 13 0 1 1 8.57 13
Steve Luebber 2 0 0 0 0.00 1

Farm system

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Level Team League Manager
AAA Tacoma Twins Pacific Coast League Harry Warner
AA Charlotte Hornets Southern League Johnny Goryl
A Lynchburg Twins Carolina League Kerby Farrell
A Orlando Twins Florida State League Early Wynn
A Wisconsin Rapids Twins Midwest League Jay Ward
A Charlotte Twins Western Carolinas League Bob Sadowski
Rookie Melbourne Twins Florida East Coast League Fred Waters

Notes

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  1. ^ Bobby Darwin at Baseball Reference
  2. ^ Brant Alyea at Baseball Reference
  3. ^ Retrosheet box score – St. Louis Cardinals 6, Chicago Cubs 5 (2), game played on September 14, 1961 at Busch Stadium
  4. ^ "Retrosheet Boxscore: Kansas City Royals 5, Baltimore Orioles 4". www.retrosheet.org. Retrieved October 12, 2023.
  5. ^ Retrosheet box score – Boston Red Sox 9, Seattle Mariners 6, game played on June 28, 1984 at Fenway Park
  6. ^ Sal Butera at Baseball Reference
  7. ^ Willie Norwood at Baseball Reference
  8. ^ Lyman Bostock at Baseball Reference

References

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