Puckett Pummels Angels : Baseball: He gets four hits, including a home run, as the Twins score a 7-2 victory.

When Kirby Puckett is hitting well, the smart move often is to walk him. The Angels had tried, but Puckett wouldn’t allow it.

“We tried to walk Kirby once,” Angel Manager Buck Rodgers said Saturday. “We threw him a bad ball, down and in, and he hit it off his shoetops down the line for a double. But that’s Kirby Puckett.”

Puckett had four hits, three of them for extra bases, scored three runs and drove in two as the Twins beat the Angels, 7-2. The Twins, who won for the fourth time in five games, have beaten the Angels seven times in eight games this season. Twin pitchers have a 1.87 earned-run average (15 earned runs in 72 innings) in those eight games.

Puckett began his fourth four-hit game of the season by hitting the first pitch he saw from former teammate Bert Blyleven (8-8) into the left-field stands for a solo homer during the first inning. He had an RBI double during the third, a single during the sixth and another double to lead off the eighth.

“I’m just swinging and hitting it,” Puckett said. “You get that one pitch to hit each time and you’ve got to hit that pitch, because most of the time pitchers only give you that one shot. If they get ahead, then they start throwing that curveball.”

Blyleven has given up 428 homers. He is sixth on the all-time list, behind Robin Roberts (505), Ferguson Jenkins (484), Phil Niekro (482), Don Sutton (472) and Warren Spahn (434).

Mike Trombley (1-1), in his third start since his recall from triple-A Portland on Aug. 18, gave up four hits in six innings for his first major league victory. Mark Guthrie retired nine in a row for his fifth save.

“I thought we were going to get to him (Trombley),” Rodgers said. “But (Twin Manager Tom Kelly) got him out of there at the right time. He knows him. He gave them six good innings.”

After the Twins went ahead by 3-0, the Angels cut the lead to 3-2 with single runs during the fourth and sixth innings, on an RBI double by Hubie Brooks and a homer by Luis Sojo, his seventh of the year.

The Twins scored twice during the sixth, on an RBI infield single by Pedro Munoz and a sacrifice fly by Brian Harper.

The Twins’ final two runs came during the eighth. Puckett led off with a double and eventually scored on Joe Grahe’s wild pitch. Harper then singled, scoring pinch-runner Darren Reed.