October  6, 1991, Metro Edition

SECTION: Sports; Pg. 1C
LENGTH: 718 words
HEADLINE: Erickson's magic number: 20 // Milestone victory enhances chance for Cy Young Award
BYLINE: Jeff Lenihan; Staff Writer

 BODY:
    Scott Erickson was less than exuberant after winning his 20th game Saturday night. But the righthander's contributions to the 3-1 victory over Toronto had his teammates excited - and turned his manager into the chairman of the Scott Erickson for Cy Young Award campaign.

    "He's got to have an awful good shot at it, a heckuva shot," Tom Kelly said after Erickson held the Blue Jays to four hits and no runs for six innings.

"He has 20 wins on the board with an outstanding ERA (3.18). I'd be disappointed if he didn't get it."

    Erickson was in the clubhouse icing his arm when Rick Aguilera nailed down the Twins' 95th victory with his club record-tying 42nd save.

    "We slapped five a couple times, but it didn't seem any different than any of his other wins," fellow pitcher Carl Willis said. "It was like we were more excited than he was."

    A stoic Erickson stood by his locker afterward saying with little inflection in his voice that the accomplishment was "gratifying."

    "I just tried to do the best I could all year," Erickson said. "I didn't pick any number before the year. But if I picked one, this would have been it."

    Taking note of his teammate's calm demeanor, second baseman Chuck Knoblauch said: "He's happy. He just doesn't let on to it."

    Erickson became the 11th Twins pitcher to win 20 games and the first since Frank Viola went 24-7 in 1988. Erickson's 20-victory season is the 13th for the Twins as Camilo Pascual (196-63) and Jim Perry (1969-70) each had two 20-victory seasons.

    Tom Glavine of Atlanta and Bill Gullickson of Detroit each won No. 20 last week. Erickson needed only 15 starts to get his first 12 victories but 17 to win the last eight. Having turned 23 in February, Erickson becomes the second-youngest 20-game winner in club history. In 1973, 22-year-old Bert Blyleven was 20-17.

    More important than Erickson's milestone was the manner in which he pitched. After a 14-start stretch during which he was saddled with a 6.75 ERA, Erickson has put together three consecutive encouraging outings. In those three starts, he is 2-1 with a 1.71 ERA, having allowed 10 hits and four runs in 21 innings.

    "He did a pretty good job," Kelly said. "He was up in the zone a little bit, as you probably saw. He wasn't as sharp as he has been the past couple times out, but I took him out with a zero on the board, so what do I know?"