August 25, 1977 – Yankees 6, Twins 4
- Sal Maiorana
- Aug 25, 2017
- 3 min read
NEW YORK – Reggie Jackson was finally starting to smile in New York, and on this night, the fact that his nemesis, Billy Martin, had 12 dozen crabs flown in from Baltimore for the post-game buffet was only part of the reason.
After all the turmoil that enveloped the Yankees during the first four-plus months of the season, the team had finally come together and was playing the way most baseball experts thought it would.
“The guys finally realized the season was getting away from them,” starting pitcher Dick Tidrow said. “Everything that happened is behind us and we had to play baseball the way we’re capable of playing.”
And the man leading that charge was Jackson. He was now entrenched in his preferred clean-up spot, and he was making Martin look awfully petty, and downright dumb, for not putting him there all season. It was all ego with Reggie, and there was just something about batting clean-up that he reveled in, which is funny today because managers now generally put their best hitters and/or run producers in the second and third spots in the order.
Oddly enough, in his Hall of Fame career, Jackson’s numbers are slightly better as a No. 3 hitter than a No. 4. He batted cleanup in 440 more games than he did third, but his slash line all the way across was a tick better at No. 3 as he hit .272, with a .370 on-base and a .534 slugging percentage as opposed to his clean-up line of .271/.365/.496.
Jackson came up in a key spot in the bottom of the eighth inning, and once again delivered in the clutch. The Twins had just tied the score in the top of the inning with a pair of runs against Sparky Lyle who was charged with his fifth blown save. However, the Yankees picked up Sparky and handed him his ninth win of the year by matching those two runs.
Thurman Munson, a guy who had not been smiling, fresh Baltimore crabs or not, was mired in a 9-for-54 slump when he led off with a double against Twins reliever Tom Johnson. Jackson, who was just trying to make sure he hit the ball to the right side to get Munson to third, instead lashed a single to right that sent Munson home with the winning run.
Piniella followed with a lineout, and then Chris Chambliss drove home Jackson with a double to give Lyle a two-run cushion heading to the ninth. Lyle, who wasn’t real sharp, gave up two singles, but then wiggled out of trouble by retiring Butch Wynegar and Dan Ford – two tough hitters – to end the game.
Afterward, Jackson said, “There are no heroes here. No matter who is doing what, I don’t care. The idea is to advance a runner, to give somebody else a chance to knock in a run, to move toward our goal. Before Thurman batted I told him I would hit the ball to the right side if he got on. I checked with Lou (Piniella) on how he hits this guy because all he has to do is make contact once I get Thurman to third. I wanted to make contact, move the runner, manufacture a run.”
One of the guys Lyle got out in the ninth was Rod Carew, meaning Carew went 0-for-5 in the game and 1-for-8 in the series, a severe damper in his chase for .400. In these two losses to New York, the majors’ leading hitter saw his average dip from .378 to .374, the lowest it had been since June 1. In the 52 games where Carew batted at least five times in 1977, this was one of only four in which he was hitless.
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