Once again, 'Joe was really locked in'

The Twins were in Anaheim on July 11, 1977. They were tied with the Angels 5-5 in the bottom of the 10th inning, and the home team loaded the bases with one out.

This was when the Little General, Twins manager Gene Mauch, sprung into action. He waved in an outfielder to give his team a five-man infield. Then, he maneuvered defenders as if the Big A was the world's largest chess board.

It took three or four minutes for Mauch to get everyone precisely where he wanted them. And then reliever Dave Johnson flung a pitch to the backstop, bringing in the winning run for the Angels.

Seattle manager Jim Riggleman came up with a very poor imitation of Mauch's five-man infield in the bottom of the ninth inning on Saturday at the Metrodome.

The Twins, for a hunk of Saturday's game, were looking at a second horrendous loss to the Fighting M's in a period of 12 days.

On Aug. 4, they entered the seventh inning with a 6-1 lead and slipped into a state of shock as the Mariners scored 10 runs.

On Saturday, Scott Baker took a 5-0 lead into the sixth inning, retired only one of five hitters and had his fourth premature departure in the past five starts.

Dennys Reyes followed with maybe his No. 1 no-sweat half-inning since 2006, and this meant that the Twins had the good fortune of Joe Mauer leading off the ninth in a tie game.

Earlier Saturday, the amiable host of a long-standing Twin Cities sports talk show received a call from a gentleman suggesting that Delmon Young was having a season for the Twins nearly as productive as Mauer's.

He wanted to stick with the basics to make this comparison. As of this morning, those numbers are .321 average, 74 runs scored and 59 RBI for Mauer, and .294, 62 runs scored and 53 RBI for Young.

"There's not that much difference between them, and yet the media gets on Young and doesn't criticize Mauer," the radio caller said.

He remained unimpressed when the disparity in on-base percentage was pointed out. Mauer leads the league at .414, compared with .339 for Young. The 75-point gap accounts for dozens of walks, many of which have moved runners forward into scoring position and contributed mightily to Justin Morneau's current total of 94 RBI.

Mauer waited and took a pitch to left for that single, and then Morneau dropped a little fly ball into left. Miguel Batista relieved and Young laid down the first sacrifice bunt of his big-league career -- and we can all agree it was a very good one.

That's when Riggleman marched sturdily from the dugout and waved right fielder Ichiro Suzuki into position at second base.

"I didn't know what the heck was going on," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said.

As it turned out, Riggleman had his five-man infield there for what became an intentional walk to pinch-hitter Mike Lamb.

When Brian Buscher batted with the bases loaded, the M's went back to the traditional 4-3 defense.

It was his third run scored -- on a home run sliced to left-center, after a single in the second inning and after the single to open the ninth.

In what could've been a tape-recorded announcement, bench coach Steve Liddle said.

"Joe was really locked in today."

A few minutes after the 7-6 victory, Buscher arrived at the clubhouse wearing the remnants of shaving cream pie.

"Joe's on [Fox] TV," he said. "Why did I get the pie?"