CLEVELAND 6, MINNESOTA 4 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Wednesday, June 5.

Batting stars:  Bobby Kielty was 2-for-4 with a home run, his third.  Cristian Guzman was 2-for-4 with a double.  Dustan Mohr was 2-for-4.

Pitching stars:  LaTroy Hawkins pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two hits and striking out one.  Bob Wells pitched a scoreless inning, walking two.

Opposition stars:  Omar Vizquel was 3-for-4 with a double.  Jim Thome was 2-for-3 with a home run (his eighteenth) and two walks.  C. C. Sabathia pitched 7.1 innings, giving up two runs on seven hits and two walks while striking out four.

The game:  With two out in the first, Ellis Burks and Thome hit back-to-back homers to put the Indians up 2-0.  The Indians scored two more in the third, one on an RBI single by Thome, to make it 4-0. John McDonald's RBI triple in the fourth increased the lead to 5-0.  The Twins got on the board with two in the fifth, one scoring on a Tom Prince ground out and the other on a Guzman single.  It stayed 5-2 until the eighth, when Einar Diaz' run-scoring single made it 6-2.  Kielty led off the ninth with a home run to cut the margin to 6-3.  Mohr singled, Jacque Jones flied out, and consecutive singles by A. J. Pierzynski and David Ortiz made it 6-4 with men on first and second.  Guzman flied out, but Doug Mientkiewicz walked to load the bases for Torii Hunter.  One imagines the crowd (such as it was--15,617) going wild.  Hunter worked the count full and fouled off some pitches, building the drama.  On the eleventh pitch of the at-bat, however, he was called out on strikes to end the game.

WP:  Sabathia (5-4).  LP:  Eric Milton (7-5).  S:  David Riske (1).

Notes:  Jones did not start, but was used as a pinch-hitter.  Kielty and Mohr manned the corner outfield positions, with Guzman leading off.  Mientkiewicz moved up to the number two spot...Brian Buchanan was the DH, going 1-for-3 with a double.  Ortiz was used as a pinch-hitter...Prince was the catcher, going 0-for-3.  Pierzynski was used as a pinch-hitter...Given the number of regulars not in the lineup, one might have thought this was a day game.  One would be wrong...Hunter was 1-for-5, dropping his average to .304...Kielty raised his average to .327...Mohr was now batting .326...Luis Rivas was 0-for-3 to drop his average to .429...Twins starter Eric Milton struck out seven in six innings, but he gave up five runs on eight hits and two walks...Hawkins lowered his ERA to 1.51...Ellis Burks was always kind of a favorite of mine, for no particular reason that I can remember.  He was a pretty good ballplayer, though.  He came up to the Red Sox in 1987 at age 22 and was immediately installed as their regular center fielder.  He held the job through 1992.  He made the all-star team in 1990 and also got his only Gold Glove and the first of two Silver Slugger awards.  There's really no difference between his 1990 season and his 1989 season except that he was healthy for the whole season.  He missed a lot of 1992 due to injury and became a free agent.  He played for the White Sox in 1993 and then went to Colorado.  He missed significant time in 1994 and 1995, but then went on to have his best years from age 31 through 37.  The best of them was 1996, when he batted .344 with an OPS of 1.047, stole thirty-two bases, led the league in runs, slugging percentage, and total bases, made his second all-star team, won his second Silver Slugger, and finished third in MVP voting behind Ken Caminiti and Mike Piazza.  He was traded to the Giants at the July trade deadline in 1998 and continued to play well.  His 2000 season, when he again batted .344, rivaled 1996 as his best season, with the main difference being that he only had 393 at-bats.  He moved on to Cleveland in 2001 and continued to play well for two years.  2002, the season we're dealing with here, was his last good year:  he batted .301 with 32 homers and had an OPS of .903.  He was still a productive player when healthy in 2003, but played only fifty-five games.  He played eleven more with the Red Sox in 2004 and then was done.  It was a darn good career, though:  .293/.363/.510 with 352 home runs and 181 stolen bases in exactly 2000 games over 18 seasons.

Record:  The Twins were 33-26. in first place by three games over Chicago.