NEW YORK 4, MINNESOTA 2 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Saturday, May 11.
Batting stars: Matthew LeCroy was 2-for-4 with a double. Bobby Kielty was 1-for-3 with a walk.
Pitching stars: Kyle Lohse pitched 6.1 innings, giving up two runs on three hits and two walks with five strikeouts. J. C. Romero pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two hits.
Opposition stars: Bernie Williams was 3-for-4 with a triple and a double. Robin Ventura was 2-for-4 with a home run (his eighth) and three RBIs. Ted Lilly pitched 5.2 innings, giving up two runs on four hits and two walks with one strikeout.
The game: The Yankees scored the first run of the game in the fourth inning on a double play. The Twins tied it in the fifth, with LeCroy hitting a two-out double and scoring on a single by Kielty. The Twins took a 2-1 lead in the sixth on Brian Buchanan's RBI single, but the Yankees tied it in the seventh when Williams tripled and scored on a Ventura single. In the ninth that combination struck again, as Williams doubled and Ventura hit a two-run homer. The Twins got a man on in the ninth on an error, but did not advance him past first base.
WP: Mike Stanton (2-0). LP: Eddie Guardado (0-1). S: Mariano Rivera (12).
Notes: Dustan Mohr led off and played left field in place of Jacque Jones. He went 1-for-4 and was batting .309...Torii Hunter was 1-for-4 and was batting .345...LeCroy raised his average to .309...Casey Blake was again at third base, going 0-for-3 with a walk...Buchanan was at DH, with Kielty in right field...Tom Prince caught, replacing A. J. Pierzynski. He went 0-for-4 to drop his average to .323...Denny Hocking was at second base...Guardado entered in the ninth inning and took the loss. He still did not have a blown save...Ted Lilly had a fine major league career, playing from 1999-2013. He made two all-star teams, in 2004 with Toronto and 2009 with the Cubs. He was never a real star--the only time he led the league in anything was 2008, when he led the league in starts--but he was a dependable starting pitcher for most of his career. He pitched between 177-207 innings ever season but one from 2003 through 2011. He had double-digit wins in every season from 2003 through 2011 and had a solid ERA in each of those years except 2005, when he missed part of the season due to injury. His career numbers are 130-113, 4.14 ERA, 1.26 WHIP in almost 2000 innings. He's not going to get into the Hall of Fame or anything, but for about nine years he was a pitcher that you were quite happy to have on your team.
Record: The Twins were 22-15, in first place, a game ahead of Chicago.