Keeping Track

2002 Rewind: Game One

23 Comments

MINNESOTA 8, KANSAS CITY 6 IN KANSAS CITY

Date:  Monday, April 1.

Batting stars:  Jacque Jones was 3-for-5 with two home runs and four RBIs.  David Ortiz was 3-for-4 with a home run, a double, and a walk.  Brian Buchanan was 2-for-4 with a home run.

Pitching stars:  J. C. Romero pitched two perfect innings with two strikeouts.  Mike Jackson pitched a scoreless inning.  Eddie Guardado walked two but still pitched a scoreless inning.

Opposition stars:  Neifi Perez was 3-for-5 with a triple.  Mike Sweeney was 2-for-4 with a double.  Carlos Beltran was 1-for-3 with a triple.

The game:  Jones and Ortiz each homered in the first inning and Buchanan homered in the second to give the Twins a 3-0 lead.  A sacrifice fly put the Royals on the board in the second and Sweeney hit a two-run double in a three-run third that gave Kansas City a 4-3 advantage.  Back-to-back RBI triples by Perez and Beltran made it 6-3 in the fifth.  Torii Hunter hit the Twins' fourth solo homer in the sixth to cut the margin to 6-4.  In the seventh, Jones hit a three-run homer to put the Twins back in the lead and a bases-loaded walk later in the inning provided an insurance run, making the score 8-6.  The Royals put the tying run on base in the ninth, as Guardado issued two-out walks to Carlos Febles and Chuck Knoblauch, but Perez flied out to end the game.

WP:  Romero.  LP:  Cory Bailey.  S:  Guardado.

Notes:  Buchanan was in right field.  Otherwise, the starters were the ones who would be the regulars all season...Brad Radke started and pitched 4.1 innings, allowing six runs (five earned) on eight hits and no walks with two strikeouts...Kansas City's starter was Jeff Suppan, who pitched six innings and gave up four runs on seven hits and no walks with three strikeouts...Ex-Twin Knoblauch started in left field, having left the infield due to his throwing problems.  This would be his last season, and he would hit just .210 with a .584 OPS.

Record:  The Twins were 1-0, tied for first with Chicago and Cleveland.

23 thoughts on “2002 Rewind: Game One”

  1. Coaching staff: Ron Gardenhire (MGR, 1st year), Steve Liddle (bench, 1st year), Rick Anderson (pitching, 1st year), Scott Ullger, (hitting, 4th year), Al Newman (third base, 1st year), Jerry White (first base, 4th year), Rick Stelmaszek (bullpen, 22nd year)

    Gardy taking over for TK resulted in some shakeup in what had been a pretty stable corps of Twins coaches. He obviously had longstanding relationships with these guys, and I assume he had full latitude in assembling his staff.

    Ullger was something of an organizational soldier, having managed in the minors, then eventually coaching both first & third base, hitting, and bench in Minnesota.

    Steve Liddle took over for Paul Molitor, who has the distinction of being both TK's & Gardy's last bench coach. I wonder: if Molitor could do it all over again with the benefit of hindsight on contraction & the era opening in front of the Twins, would he prefer to have interviewed for the open managerial job, or not?

    Dick Martin, who had been with the Twins since at least 1972 (and head trainer since 1973), was apparently fired by Terry Ryan prior to the season. (I've seen suggestions that Martin sold his World Series rings in the fallout, but don't know if that's true or not.) Jim Kahmann was the first new head trainer the Twins had in a long time. How many trainers have they gone through since him?

  2. I was in my last year of undergrad in Winona and could only listen to games on the radio. I remember being super psyched for this season given how 2001 ended and many were predicting the Twins to be competitive with Cleveland. I decided I was going to keep score in a scorebook the entire season. That admittedly only lasted about a month (and I've since lost them), but I vividly remember this game, with Jacque leading off the season with a homer and then taking the lead later with another one.

    1. KWNO!

      I was in town for part of the year, just biding time in between finishing culinary school & shipping out. I watched the ends of many of the games in the bar where I worked treaded water.

          1. If I'm guessing the right one (it's still there, right?), it's strange how little I went in there despite working across the alley from it.

            2. To be honest, I’m not sure if it’s still there. The only establishments I regularly visit when I’m in town anymore are Bloedow’s & the Lakeview, particularly now that Downtown Book & Video is gone. (I kid about that one.) The beer’s cheaper when I bring it from the People’s Republic.

              But yes, if both these establishments overlook the parking lot of the cinema, then we’re probably talking the same place.

              1. Heh, yup. Pretty sure yours is still there. I visited my former establishment over the summer. It is literally exactly the same as it was when I left 10 years ago. Like, exactly. That includes a lot of the staff too.

                One cool bit of news: the co-op bought their entire building, including the bar space next store (whichever incarnation of it it was shut down due to stabbings) and are expanding into it. Might already be complete by now.

                1. Hey, that’s cool! I believe that building was originally a grocery store, so it’s good to see it returned to that state.

                  I seem to recall hearing some news about some less-than-great management issues there, but that was several years back, and I only have a dim memory of what had been communicated to me. So if the co-op’s doing that well, I’m hoping that means things have been sorted.

    2. Keeping score of each game even for a month is pretty good. Were you actually able to do that live, or did you record them somehow?

  3. I have zero memory of this entire season. I watched the Twins more in the mid-'90s but got lost in the lure of the Vikings in the late '90s. I remember following the Twins in 2000 but that's it until at least 2004, if not 2006. I'm pretty sure I followed the season to some extent and I think I remember the opening but that's it.

  5. I remember that everyone made a huge deal about Jacque Jones leading off the game with a HR. It was a big middle finger to Pohlad and Selig and contraction.

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