MINNESOTA 7, TORONTO 5 IN TORONTO
Date: Saturday, April 6.
Batting stars: Cristian Guzman was 2-for-4 with a double and a stolen base. Corey Koskie was 2-for-4 with a double. Doug Mientkiewicz was 2-for-5 with a double and a stolen base.
Pitching stars: LaTroy Hawkins pitched 1.2 scoreless innings. Eddie Guardado struck out two in a scoreless inning.
Opposition stars: Felipe Lopez was 2-for-4 with a double. Carlos Delgado was 2-for-5 with a double. Shannon Stewart was 2-for-5.
The game: The Twins again jumped out to an early lead. Guzman scored from first on a Mientkiewicz double to put Minnesota up 1-0 in the first. Two walks, a single, and a ground out gave the Blue Jays a 2-1 lead after one, but the Twins came back with five in the second. Jay Canizaro had a two-run triple, Tom Prince an RBI single, a run scored on a ground out, and a sacrifice fly rounded out the inning. Toronto got one back in the third on a Delgado double, but it was still 6-3 until the eighth, when the Blue Jays opened the inning with four consecutive singles, making the score 6-5. They put men on second and third with two out, but a popup ended the inning. A Jacque Jones homer in the ninth gave Minnesota an insurance run, and Guardado came in to slam the door in the ninth.
WP: Hawkins. LP: Scott Eyre. S: Guardado.
Notes: Canizaro got the start at second this time and went 1-for-3 with a triple and two RBIs...Tom Prince caught for the second straight game in place of A. J. Pierzynski...Starter Kyle Lohse lasted just 4.1 innings, giving up three runs on eight hits and three walks and three strikeouts. He was removed in the fifth after consecutive singles put men on first and third with one out...Jones' home run was his third in five games...Guardado's save was his fourth in five games...Dustan Mohr was 1-for-3 and was batting .400...Jones and Mientkiewicz were each at .381...The Twins had four starters batting below .200: Torii Hunter (.190), Guzman (.176), Koskie (.150) and Canizaro (.125).
Record: The Twins were 4-1, tied for first place with Cleveland.
Man, what a one-year turnaround for that bullpen. You can pretty much point to the bullpen as to why 2001 wound up with a 2nd place finish.
I was going to talk about how ridiculous it was that Gardenhire slotted Jacque Jones into the #1 spot in the lineup. But in addition to lineup construction not mattering all that much, it looks like Jones was only behind Koskie and Mientkiewicz in OBP of all the regulars. He never walked, but neither did most anyone else and he did hit .300.
The much bigger mistake was Guzman batting second pretty much all year. Jones was second to Torii on the team in OPS and Jones had a better OBP, so that made a lot of sense to bat Jones leadoff, at least against righties. Guzman was the worst batter of the regulars in both OPS and OBP and he led the team in PAs. That's awful.