BALTIMORE (Apr 15, 1997 - 04:02 EST) -- If first impressions mean anything,
then Scott
Erickson could be on his way to his finest season in the majors.
Erickson stymied the Minnesota Twins on five hits for eight innings
Monday night as the Baltimore
Orioles stretched their winning streak to four games with a 4-2 victory.
Working on nine days rest, Erickson improved to 2-0 for the first time.
He faced the minimum 15
batters in his final five innings and got 16 groundball outs -- including
three double plays.
"When you have this kind of infield and Scotty does that, he's going
to have some kind of year,"
Orioles manager Davey Johnson said. "I didn't see him throw like that
last year during the first two
months at all."
Working in front of an infield of Cal Ripken at third, Mike Bordick
at shortstop, Roberto Alomar at
second and Rafael Palmeiro at first, Erickson did the wise thing. He
relied heavily on his sinkerball
and resisted the urge to fire the ball past the Twins.
"I hadn't pitched in a few days, so I didn't want to overthrow," he
said. "I just wanted to let the
defense do the job behind me. Fortunately, the groundballs were mostly
at people."
Many that weren't were chased by down by Ripken and Alomar, each of
whom made several
outstanding plays.
"They're excellent. You've got possibly three or four Gold Gloves there,
so I let them do all the
work," Erickson said.
Erickson struck out four and walked two in only his seventh career win
in April. The eight-year
veteran started the season with a 5-15 April record.
In 1991, when he won 20 games for the only time, Erickson started 0-2.
"He was outstanding. That reminded me of Scotty in September," Johnson said.
Erickson, 21-8 lifetime in September and October, allowed only one hit
after the third inning in
beating his former team for the first time in three tries.
"I thought he kept the ball down real good in the middle part of the
game. I know we hit a lot of
ground balls, and that's a pretty good indicator," Twins manager Tom
Kelly said.
"He had a lot of movement on his fastball. It was sinking pretty good,"
said Matt Lawton, who had
half the Twins' six hits. "I was just trying to get him to leave his
fastball up a little more."
They still lost again.
Erickson proved too tough for his slumping former team Thursday night,
scattering five hits and
pitching out of an eighth-inning jam as the Baltimore Orioles beat
the Twins 3-2.
It was the eighth straight defeat for the Twins, their longest skid
since losing nine in a row in June
1993. Yet they embarked on a seven-game road trip only three behind
Milwaukee in the mediocre
AL Central and buoyed by the return of Paul Molitor from the disabled
list.
"You try to take the same approach as when you have an eight-game winning
streak," rookie Todd
Walker said. "You don't get too emotional about it. You don't get too
down. Eventually it's going to
turn."
It almost did Thursday, but the Orioles produced when it mattered most.
The Twins got Chuck Knoblauch to third with one out in the fourth but
managed only two
groundballs to short off of Erickson (4-1). The Orioles answered with
Pete Incaviglia's RBI single off
Scott Aldred (1-3) in virtually the same situation in the top of the
fifth for a 1-0 lead.
When the Twins walked Incaviglia intentionally to load the bases in
the seventh, B.J. Surhoff
followed with a two-run single to make it 3-0.
Minnesota rallied with Matt Lawton's two-out solo homer in the seventh,
ending Erickson's scoreless
streak at 15 1-3 innings. Walker's RBI double, his first hit this season
in 14 at-bats with runners in
scoring position, made it 3-2 with no outs in the eighth.
A wild pitch by Erickson moved Walker to third, but Erickson struck
out Pat Meares and got
Knoblauch and Rich Becker on grounders to preserve the lead.
"It's happening every night the last week," Twins first baseman Ron
Coomer said of the missed
opportunities. "We've just got to overcome it."
It hasn't helped that the Twins have played their last six games against
Texas and Baltimore, two of
the hottest teams in the AL. The Orioles' 16 wins in April matched
a team record, and they are
emerging as the team to beat in the East with a 4 1/2-game lead over
Boston.
"I think of everything as a team game," said closer Randy Myers, who
got the final two outs for his
11th save in 11 chances. "We're scoring a lot of runs and the starters
and defense are doing an
outstanding job. It's a team effort."
Erickson, traded to the Orioles in July 1995, was outstanding until
tiring in the seventh and eighth,
and even then he outfought the Twins.
Knoblauch's infield hit in the fourth, a bouncer off the plate, was
Minnesota's only hit through six.
The Twins sent 17 batters to the plate in one stretch without getting
a ball out of the infield.
"He was really good," Walker said. "Eventually we figured him out a
little bit and got to him a little
bit. But he's tough."
MINNEAPOLIS (Jul 28, 1997 - 03:45 EDT) -- Scott Erickson was his usual
low-key self Sunday
despite his first shutout since 1995.
"It's nice, but it's not like I'm going to get 100 shutouts in my career,"
Erickson said after limiting
Minnesota to five hits as the Baltimore Orioles blanked the Twins 9-0.
Erickson (13-5) struck out a season-high nine to raise his record to
3-0 against the Twins this year.
But he attached no special significance to beating the team he played
for until July, 1995.
"I lost my first two (to the Twins) and have won my last three," he
said. "A lot of the guys over there
weren't even my teammates back then."
Erickson used a nasty sinker to record his 10th career shutout, and
his first shutout since blanking
Toronto on Sept. 27, 1995.
"Erickson just dominated the game," said Twins manager Tom Kelly. "He
shut us down. The ball
was sinking good."
It was Erickson's first complete game of the year and snapped a string
of four starts in which he gave
up 40 hits in 20 2-3 innings.
"It was just a little spell," Erickson said. "You can't worry about three or four bad starts."
Baltimore manager Davey Johnson called Erickson's performance "about
as dominant as you get,"
and said Erickson resembled the pitcher who got off to an 8-1 start
this season.
"That's more like the Scott from early in the year," Johnson said.
The Orioles have won five of six and now lead the second-place New York
Yankees by 5 1/2
games in the AL East.
Erickson, who played six seasons in Minnesota, allowed only two infield
hits through the first six
innings. The three hits he permitted late in the game did no damage.
However, catcher Lenny
Webster could tell Erickson was bothered by them.
"He gets upset when they get hits off him, but that's just Scott," said
Webster, who also played for
the Twins. "He gets upset anytime someone gets a hit off him."
Erickson was helped by a pair of three-run homers by Geronimo Berroa and B.J. Surhoff.
"We had a nice big lead and I just tried to make good pitches," Erickson
said. "I don't even think I
threw that hard today. My focus was to keep the ball down. That's my
goal."