KANSAS CITY 16, MINNESOTA 3 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Wednesday, April 17.
Batting stars: David Ortiz was 1-for-4 with a two-run homer, his fourth. Bobby Kielty was 1-for-4 with a home run, his second.
Pitching stars: None.
Opposition stars: Joe Randa was 2-for-3 with a double and three RBIs. Raul Ibanez was 2-for-5 with a double and three RBIs. Carlos Beltran was 1-for-3 with a home run, two walks, and four RBIs.
The game: The Twins' winning streak came to a crashing halt. It was a good game for six innings, though. Brad Radke ran into first-inning trouble for the first time all season, as an RBI single by Mike Sweeney and a two-run double by Randa put the Royals up 3-0. It stayed 3-0 until the bottom of the fifth, when Kielty hit a home run to make it 3-1. Kansas City got the run back in the sixth on Randa's RBI single. Ortiz hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the sixth to cut the lead to 4-3. In the seventh, however, a walk, an error, and Beltran's three-run homer put the Royals up 7-3. Kansas City really put the game away in the eighth, scoring nine runs. They had five consecutive one-out singles followed by a double. A walk, a single, another walk, and another double made it 16-3 by the end of the inning.
WP: Paul Byrd (3-0) LP: Brad Radke (2-1). S: None.
Notes: Denny Hocking again played second base. He went 0-for-3 to drop his average to .115...Jacque Jones went 1-for-4 to drop his average to .361...Doug Mientkiewicz was 1-for-3 to make his average .300...Torii Hunter was 1-for-4 to drop his average to .373...Beltran's three-run homer came off LaTroy Hawkins. An error made the runs unearned, however, so his ERA dropped to 0.73...The eighth-inning runs came off Bob Wells (five) and Jack Cressend (four)...Ex-Twin Chuck Knoblauch was 1-for-4 to raise his average to .204...Ex-Twin David McCarty was 0-for-1 as a pinch-hitter and was batting .167...Royals starter Paul Byrd pitched six innings, giving up three runs on five hits and no walks with four strikeouts.
Record: The Twins were 9-6, in third place, 2.5 games behind Cleveland and a half game behind Chicago.
2002 was, by far, Byrd's best season by rWAR. He posted 5.6 wins that year, about a third of his career total and over double his next best season from 2005. Fangraphs has 2005 as the better season at 3.3 wins but 2002 is close behind at 3.1. Wikipedia says that was the year he developed his "old-fashioned" windup.