DETROIT 5, MINNESOTA 4 IN DETROIT

Date:  Sunday, April 28.

Batting stars:  Corey Koskie was 2-for-4 with a home run, his second.  Matthew LeCroy was 2-for-5 with two doubles.  Torii Hunter was 1-for-4 with a double and a walk.

Pitching star:  LaTroy Hawkins pitched a perfect inning with one strikeout.

Opposition stars:  Ex-Twin Mark Redman struck out eight in seven innings, giving up one run on seven hits and a walk.  Bobby Higginson was 3-for-5.  Randall Simon was 2-for-4 with a home run, his seventh.

The game:  Simon's RBI single put the Tigers up 1-0 in the first inning.  The Twins tied it in the second on Koskie's run-scoring single.  It stayed 1-1 until the fourth, when Brandon Inge hit a home run to give Detroit a 2-1 advantage.  The Tigers took it to 4-1 in the fifth on Simon's two-run homer.  Minnesota got back into it in the eighth when Koskie hit a two-out two-run homer to cut the margin to 4-3.  In the ninth, Bobby Kielty delivered a pinch-hit leadoff triple and scored on a ground out to tie it up 4-4.  Mike Jackson came on to pitch the ninth.  He retired the first two batters but then gave up a single to Wendell McGee, bringing in J. C. Romero.  Romero walked Robert Fick and then gave up a run-scoring single to Higginson to end the game.

WP:  Julio Santana (1-0).  LP:  Jackson (1-1).  S:  None.

Notes:  LeCroy was again the DH with David Ortiz out.  He raised his average to .357...Brian Buchanan was again in right field rather than Dustan Mohr or Kielty.  He went 0-for-3 with a walk...Tom Prince gave A. J. Pierzynski a day off behind the plate.  He was 1-for-3 to make his average .368...Denny Hocking got the call at second base this time and went 0-for-3.  Gardy appears to have been hoping either Hocking or Canizaro would lay claim to the second base job in the absence of Luis Rivas, but so far neither of them had...Brad Radke pitched seven innings, giving up four runs on eight hits and a walk with one strikeout.  His ERA on the season was now 6.48...Jacque Jones was 0-for-4 to drop his average to .317...Hunter's average went to .361...Redman had a decent season in 2002.  His record was just 8-15, but it was with an ERA of 4.21 and a WHIP of 1.29.  His best year would be 2003, when he went 14-9, 3.59 in helping the Florida Marlins win the World Series...In my memory, Bobby Higginson always killed the Twins.  He did well against them this year, batting .324/.329/.479.  For his career, though, he batted .259/.329/.456, not bad but nothing that exciting.  He did hit twenty home runs against them--maybe I just happened to see the games when he hit one or something.

Record:  The Twins were 14-11, in second place, a game behind Chicago.