Keeping Track

2002 Rewind: Game Fourteen

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MINNESOTA 8, KANSAS CITY 5 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Tuesday, April 16.

Batting stars:  Torii Hunter was 3-for-4 and scored three times.  Corey Koskie, Dustan Mohr, and Jacque Jones were each 2-for-4 with a double.

Pitching stars:  Tony Fiore pitched 2.2 scoreless innings.  J. C. Romero struck out three in 1.1 scoreless innings.  Eddie Guardado struck out two in a perfect ninth.

Opposition stars:  Mike Sweeney was 3-for-5.  Joe Randa was 2-for-3 with a triple.  Ex-Twin Chuck Knoblauch was 2-for-5 with a double.

The game:  The Royals jumped on Twins' starter Rick Reed early.  Michael Tucker hit a two-run double, followed by a sacrifice fly, to give Kansas City a 3-0 lead.  Minnesota got two back in the second, scoring one on a wild pitch and one on a Mohr double.  The Royals took the lead back to three by scoring two in the third, getting an RBI single by Sweeney and a run-scoring triple by Randa.  The Twins again cut the lead to one at 5-4 in the fourth, getting four consecutive singles and an RBI ground out.  Minnesota finally took the lead in the sixth, scoring four times.  Koskie had an RBI double to tie it, A. J. Pierzynski gave the Twins the lead with a run-scoring single, Jones hit a sacrifice fly, and Cristian Guzman knocked in a run with a single to put the Twins ahead 8-5.  Kansas City got the tying run up to bat in the seventh, putting men on first and second with one out, but a ground out and a strikeout ended the inning.

WP:  Fiore (1-0).  LP:  Blake Stein (0-1).  S:  Guardado (6).

Notes:  Tom Prince started the game, but was removed in the third inning after Randa's RBI triple.  One assumes there must have been a play at the plate that caused him to come out.  Pierzynski replaced him...Denny Hocking was again at second base.  He went 1-for-4 to raise his average to .130...Reed lasted just 3.1 innings, allowing five runs on seven hits and three walks with one strikeout.  It's remarkable that the Twins won as many games as they did early in the year given how bad their starting pitching was...Jones raised his average to .368...Hunter raised his average to .382...Mohr raised his average to .375...Pierzynski went 1-for-3 and was batting .302...Fiore, Romero, and Mike Jackson all kept their ERAs at zero.  Fiore had pitched 3.2 innings, Romero ten, and Jackson six...The Royals used two ex-Twins, Knoblauch and David McCarty.  Knoblauch started in left field and raised his average to .200.  McCarty was used as a pinch-hitter and went 0-for-1, making his average .182.

Record:  The Twins were 9-5, in second place, 2.5 games behind Cleveland.

5 thoughts on “2002 Rewind: Game Fourteen”

  1. I don’t think he rates as the worst draft pick in Twins history, but man, was Dave McCarty a disappointment. He was BA’s College Player of the Year when the Twins selected him with the #3 pick in the draft, behind Brien Taylor & Mike Kelly. Players drafted after McCarty include Dmitri Young (4), Joey Hamilton (8), Shawn Estes (11), Doug Glanville (12), Manny Ramirez (13), Cliff Floyd (14), Shawn Green (16), and Aaron Sele (23).

    (Fortunately?), the Twins picked Scott Stahoviak in the supplemental round. Stahoviak only reached 54% of the total games and 70% of the PA McCarty racked up, but finished with 3.0 more rWAR than McCarty. Unfortunately for Stahoviak, game logs weren’t a thing when he was playing, so he missed out on claiming the Smokestack/Sleestak/Swizzlestick namespace.

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