MINNESOTA 6, CLEVELAND 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Saturday, April 20.

Batting stars:  Torii Hunter was 2-for-3 with a home run (his sixth), a walk, and a stolen base (his third).  A. J. Pierzynski was 2-for-4.  Doug Mientkiewicz was 1-for-3 with a home run and a walk.

Pitching stars:  Matt Kinney pitched 6.1 innings, giving up one run on three hits and three walks with four strikeouts.  J. C. Romero and Eddie Guardado each pitched a scoreless inning.

Opposition stars:  Ricky Gutierrez was 2-for-3 with a walk.  Milton Bradley was 1-for-4 with a home run, his second.  Ricardo Rincon pitched two perfect innings.

The game:  Jay Canizaro delivered an RBI double in the second and Jacque Jones followed with a sacrifice fly to give the Twins a 2-0 lead.  Hunter led off the fourth with a home run and Dustan Mohr doubled and scored later in the inning to make it 4-0.  Mientkiewicz homered in the fifth to push the lead to 5-0.  Bradley got the Indians on the board in the seventh with a home run and they got another run in the eighth on Gutierrez' run-scoring single.  Cleveland had the tying run up to bat with none out at that point, but Romero got a strikeout and two ground outs to end the inning.  Pierzynski singled home a run in the eighth and Guardado closed it out with a perfect ninth.

WP:  Kinney (1-0).  LP:  Ryan Drese (2-1).  S:  None.

Notes:  Bobby Kielty was again the DH in place of David Ortiz, who was apparently injured.  He would not play again until May 13...Canizaro was 1-for-3 to raise his average to .154...This was Kinney's first start of the season.  He would be in the rotation until the end of June, then miss the rest of the season due to injury.  Three of his first four starts were quite good, but he struggled after that, ending the year with an ERA of 4.64 and a WHIP of 1.68...Drese started for Cleveland and pitched 5.2 innings, allowing five runs on seven hits and two walks with three strikeouts.  Drese had done well in nine appearances for the Indians in 2001, but he would have only one good season in the majors (with Texas in 2004) and even that one wasn't that great...Mark Wohlers finished the game for Cleveland, giving up a run in a third of an inning.  Wohlers had been a fine relief pitcher for Atlanta from 1995-97, but this was his last year in the majors.  His strikeouts per nine innings, which had been as high as 12.5 in his heyday, were down to 5.8.  He wasn't terrible in 2002, but he certainly wasn't anywhere close to what he had been...The Indians had some interesting names in their bullpen, but they could've used more good pitchers.  In addition to Nagy, who we talked about yesterday, and Wohlers, they also had Dave Burba and Bob Wickman.  They appear to have been really just trying to piece things together.

Record:  The Twins were 12-6, in first place, a half game ahead of Chicago and Cleveland.