MINNESOTA 5, MILWAUKEE 1 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Friday, June 28.
Batting stars: A. J. Pierzynski was 2-for-3 with a home run (his fifth) and a walk, driving in three. Torii Hunter was 2-for-3 with a double, a walk, and two stolen bases, his twelfth and thirteenth. Dustan Mohr was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer, his seventh.
Pitching stars: Johan Santana struck out nine in eight innings, giving up one run on four hits and no walks. Tony Fiore pitched a perfect inning.
Opposition stars: Alex Ochoa was 1-for-3 with a stolen base, his fifth.
The game: Pierzynski hit a two-run homer in the second to give the Twins a 2-0 lead. Mohr hit a two-run homer in the fourth to make it 4-0. That was more than enough, as Santana limited the Brewers to two hits over the first six innings. Ochoa singled home the lone Milwaukee run in the seventh to cut the margin to 4-1. Pierzynski singled home the game's final run in the ninth.
WP: Santana (3-1). LP: Ben Sheets (4-9). S: None.
Notes: Hunter raised his average to .303...Mohr raised his average to .306...Pierzynski was now batting .327...This was Santana's best game of the season so far. He would have one better, in late July...Sheets pitched 6.2 innings, giving up four runs on eight hits and two walks with one strikeout...Ben Sheets was a solid rotation starter for the Brewers for eight years, making the all-star team in four of them. He came up in 2001 and did well immediately, going 10-4, 3.35 through the end of June and making his first all-star team. He tailed off the rest of the season, though, ending 11-10, 4.76. He was decent, but nothing more, in 2002-2003. In 2004, though, he had his best season, going 12-14, 2.70, 0.98 WHIP with 264 strikeouts in 237 innings. He made his second all-star team and got the only Cy Young votes of his career, finishing eighth as he was obviously hurt by his won-lost record. He started having injury problems after that. He made 34 starts in each season from 2002-2004, but averaged only 21 starts from 2005-2007. He pitched well when he could pitch, though, and in 2008 he came back to make 31 starts and go 13-9, 3.09, 1.15 WHIP. He then became a free agent, but missed all of 2009 due to an elbow injury. He came back with Oakland in 2010 and wasn't terrible in 20 starts, but he was not the pitcher he had been. He missed all of 2011 due to injury but came back again, making nine starts with Atlanta in 2012 and doing fairly well. That was the end of his playing career, though. His won-lost record doesn't look like much--94-96 in 250 starts--but he had a lifetime ERA of 3.78 and a WHIP of 1.22, and that's a pretty good pitcher. According to wikipedia, he is a part-owner of the Milwaukee Admirals of the AHL and is a volunteer baseball coach at Louisiana-Monroe.
Record: The Twins were 45-35, in first place, six games ahead of Chicago.