MINNESOTA 7, TAMPA BAY 6 IN MINNESOTA (10 INNINGS)
Date: Thursday, May 2.
Batting stars: Corey Koskie was 3-for-5 with two home runs (his third and fourth) and three RBIs. Matthew LeCroy was 2-for-4 with a walk. A. J. Pierzynski was 1-for-4 with a triple and a walk.
Pitching stars: Matt Kinney pitched six innings, giving up one run on four hits and two walks with five strikeouts. Tony Fiore pitched three shutout innings, giving up one hit and two walks with one strikeout.
Opposition stars: Steve Cox was 3-for-5 with a double. Ben Grieve was 2-for-4 with a double and a walk.
The game: The Devil Rays scored once in the fourth to take a 1-0 lead. It stayed 1-0 until the seventh, when Tampa Bay scored five times to take a 6-0 lead. They opened the inning with three consecutive hits and then put together four consecutive two-out hits, two of them doubles. The Twins got back into the game in the bottom of the seventh. Koskie hit a two-run homer to put them on the board. Later in the inning, Bobby Kielty walked and scored on Pierzynski's triple. Jacque Jones delivered an RBI single to score Pierzynski and cut the lead to 6-4. It was still 6-4 going to the bottom of the ninth. Esteban Yan came in and walked Pierzynski and Denny Hocking to start the inning. Steven Kent then came in. Jones bunted the men over to second and third. Jay Canizaro fouled out, but Doug Mientkiewicz singled in two runs to tie the score 6-6. In the bottom of the tenth, Koskie hit his second home run to win the game.
WP: Fiore (2-0). LP: Kent (0-1). S: None.
Notes: Canizaro again started at second base, going 0-for-5...LeCroy again was the DH and raised his average to .361...Hocking was again the shortstop and was 0-for-2 with two walks, dropping his average to .196...It was Pierzynski's second triple of the season. He would go on to hit six in 2002, his career high. He had 24 triples for his career...It was Kinney's second good start in three outings in 2002...Jack Cressend gave up the first three hits in the seventh inning and was charged with three runs. This was his twelfth game of the season. He had gone unscored upon in eight of them (8.1 innings). In the other four games, he gave up twelve runs (4.2 innings)...This was Fiore's fifth game. He had given up just one run in thirteen innings for an ERA of 0.69. He obviously wouldn't keep that up, but he had a fine season in 2002, going 10-3, 3.16, 1.29 WHIP. He finished eighth in Rookie of the Year voting at age thirty. It was the only good year he had and in fact, he would only pitch in the majors for one more year. He would continue to pitch through 2007, ending his playing career in Italy.
Record: The Twins were 18-11, taking over first place by a half game over Chicago.