MINNESOTA 6, CHICAGO 5 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Wednesday, June 26.
Batting stars: Bobby Kielty was 2-for-3 with a home run (his fifth), a double, and a walk, driving in four. David Ortiz was 2-for-3 with two doubles and a walk. Doug Mientkiewicz was 1-for-3 with a hit-by-pitch.
Pitching star: LaTroy Hawkins struck out two in a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.
Opposition stars: Carlos Lee was 2-for-4 with two home runs, his tenth and eleventh. Mark Johnson was 2-for-3 with two doubles. Frank Thomas was 2-for-5.
The game: Lee homered with two out in the second to give the White Sox a 1-0 lead. Kielty answered with a two-run homer in the bottom of the second to make it 2-1 Twins. The Twins opened up a 5-1 lead in the third, as Corey Koskie had an RBI single and Kietly came through with a two-run double. Lee homered again leading off the fifth to make it 5-2, but again the Twins answered in the bottom of the inning, as Torii Hunter scored from first on an Ortiz double. It stayed 6-2 until the seventh, when the White Sox put men on second and third with one out. J. C. Romero came in to give up an RBI ground out and a run-scoring single by Kenny Lofton to make it 6-4. Eddie Guardado came in to pitch the ninth and retired the first two batters but then walked the next three, loading the bases. Thomas lined a single to left to score one and leave the bases loaded. Magglio Ordonez then popped up to shortstop to end the game and allow Twins fans to breathe again.
WP: Kyle Lohse (7-5). LP: Todd Ritchie (4-10). S: Guardado (23).
Notes: Kielty raised his average to .338...A. J. Pierzynski was 1-for-4 and was batting .319...Lohse didn't pitch badly, but his final line reads 6.1 innings, four runs, six hits, a walk, and three strikeouts...Hawkins' ERA dropped to 1.66...Ritchie allowed six runs in six innings, giving up ten hits and a walk and striking out three...Guardado only walked eighteen batters in 2002. He only had one other game in which he walked more than one, and it was the first game of the season. Prior to this game, he had not issued a walk since May 25, a span of thirteen appearances (14 innings)...Mark Johnson appears to be your typical "good glove man" catcher. At least I assume he was a good glove man, because he couldn't hit. He was drafted by the White Sox in the first round in 2004. He got a September call-up in 1998 and stayed with the White Sox through 2002. He shared the catching position with people like Brook Fordyce, Josh Paul, Charles Johnson, and Sandy Alomar, batting .222/.317/.327 over that span. If you're wondering "Why wouldn't they just make Sandy Alomar the regular catcher", well, they did. But he didn't get to the White Sox until 2001, and he was injured part of the time, so Johnson kept getting to play. He was with Oakland in 2003 and Milwaukee in 2004, spending most of that time in the minor leagues. He was in the minors for all of 2005-2007 in the organizations of the Cubs, Milwaukee, and Arizona. He was with St. Louis in 2008 and managed to get ten more games in the big leagues. He was in the Cubs organization for 2009-2010, then his playing career was over. For his career he hit .218/.314/.318 in 934 at-bats. The Cubs apparently liked him, because they kept him in the organization as a minor league manager as soon as his playing career was over. He has managed the Tennessee Smokies in the Southern League since 2016.
Record: The Twins were 44-34, in first place by seven games over Chicago.