MINNESOTA 5, TAMPA BAY 3 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Wednesday, May 1.

Batting stars:  Jacque Jones was 3-for-5 with two doubles and a stolen base, his third.  Jay Canizaro was 3-for-5 with a double.  Corey Koskie was 2-for-3 with two doubles and a walk.

Pitching stars:  Rick Reed struck out seven in six innings, giving up three runs on eight hits and two walks.  Mike Jackson retired all four batters he faced, striking out one.  Eddie Guardado struck out two in a perfect inning.

Opposition stars:  Steve Cox was 2-for-3 with a walk.  Greg Vaughn was 2-for-4 with a double.

The game:  in the first, Jason Tyner tripled and scored on a sacrifice fly to give the Devil Rays a 1-0 lead.  It went to 3-0 in the third when Cox delivered a two-out two-run single.  The Twins took the lead with a four-run fourth.  Brian Buchanan led off with a single followed by a Torii Hunter double.  Koskie then came through with a two-run double and, with one out, Tom Prince hit a two-run homer to give Minnesota a 4-3 advantage.  Tampa Bay loaded the bases with one out in the sixth, but Reed was allowed to work his way out of it and did, getting a strike out and a ground out.  In the seventh the Devil Rays got a pair of two-out singles, but Jackson came on to strike out Vaughn to end the inning and Tampa Bay did not get another man on base.  In the eighth, Jones doubled, stole third, and scored on a Canizaro single to round out the scoring.

WP:  Reed (3-1).  LP:  Tanyon Sturtze (0-3).  S:  Guardado (11).

Notes:  Canizaro again played second base...Buchanan was once again the DH.  He went 1-for-5 to make his average .303...Prince replaced A. J. Pierzynski behind the plate and went 1-for-4 with a home run, his third.  His average was .348...Denny Hocking filled in at shortstop and went 2-for-3, raising his average over the Mendoza line to .204...Jones raised his average to .319...Hunter went 1-for-3 with a walk to make his average .370...Dustan Mohr was 0-for-4 to drop his average to .347...Jackson's ERA fell to 1.69 and Guardado's ERA fell to 1.29...The Devil Rays started three players who would have Twins connections:  Brent Abernathy, Tyner, and Chris Gomez.  They combined to go 3-for-14, with each getting one hit...Vaughn was batting just .116 after this game.  He was thirty-six and nearly to the end of his career at this point.  He had been a fine player for several years, making four all-star teams and twice finishing fourth in MVP voting.  He hit fifty home runs for San Diego in 1998, leading the Padres to the World Series, and hit over forty two other times.  In 2002, however, he would bat only .163 with an OPS of .601 and 8 home runs.  He would struggle through a month and a half with Colorado in 2003, used mostly as a pinch-hitter, and then his playing career was over.  He ended with 355 home runs and a career OPS of .807.  That's the most home runs for a player with a last name beginning with V, ahead of his cousin Mo Vaughn.  He's also a cousin of former major league player Jerry Royster.  He is currently involved in raising money for diabetes research.

Record:  The Twins were 17-11, in second place, a half game behind Chicago.