MINNESOTA 10, TORONTO 6 IN TORONTO
Date: Sunday, April 7.
Batting stars: Dustan Mohr was 3-for-5 with a home run. Corey Koskie was 1-for-3 with a home run, two walks, and three RBIs. Torii Hunter was 1-for-3 with a home run (his third), a walk, and three RBIs. David Ortiz was 1-for-3 with a home run (his third) and two walks, scoring three times.
Pitching stars: Bob Wells and Mike Jackson each pitched a scoreless inning.
Opposition stars: Raul Mondesi was 2-for-5 with a home run, his second. Carlos Delgado was 2-for-2 with two doubles and a walk. Chris Woodward was 1-for-3 with a home run.
The game: The Twins again jumped on a starter early. A single and two walks loaded the bases with one out in the first. Hunter hit a sacrifice fly and Koskie followed with a three-run homer to put the Twins in front 4-0. Mohr led off the fourth with a home run to make it 5-0. The Blue Jays got on the board in the bottom of the fourth on a Vernon Wells RBI double, but the Twins more than got the run back in the fifth as Hunter hit a two-run homer to make it 7-1. Jacque Jones had an RBI double in the sixth to make it 8-1. In the bottom of the sixth, Toronto put men on second and third with none out and a pair of RBI groundouts made it 8-3. The Blue Jays got back into the game in the seventh, as reliever Jack Cressend gave up a home run to Woodward and a two-run homer to Mondesi to cut the Twins' lead to 8-6. The Twins loaded the bases with none out in the eighth, but could only get one run on a Denny Hocking sacrifice fly. Wells and Jackson shut the door on Toronto, however, and an Ortiz home run in the ninth rounded out the scoring.
WP: Brad Radke. LP: Brian Cooper. S: None.
Notes: Warren Morris got the call at second base this time, going 0-for-3. He was 0-for-6 at this point and would get only one more at-bat as a Twin...Radke pitched six innings, giving up three runs on four hits and three walks with four strikeouts. The first inning blues had not hit him yet, as he had not given up a run in either of his first innings so far...Cressend would stick around until early June. He had some good games, but when he was bad he was quite bad, giving up multiple runs in seven of his twenty-three appearances...Jacque Jones was 2-for-5 with a double and was batting .385...Doug Mientkiewicz was 0-for-4 and was batting .320...Mohr raised his average to .467...Cristian Guzman was 1-for-4 and was batting .190...Koskie raised his average to .174...Radke lowered his ERA to 6.97...Future Twin Shannon Stewart went 0-for-4.
Record: The Twins were 5-1, tied for first with Cleveland.