MINNESOTA 5, OAKLAND 4 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Monday, July 1.
Batting stars: A. J. Pierzynski was 3-for-4. Jacque Jones was 2-for-5 with a double. Cristian Guzman was 2-for-5.
Pitching stars: Jose Rodriguez pitched two shutout innings, giving up two hits. LaTroy Hawkins pitched two shutout innings, giving up one hit and striking out one. Eddie Guardado pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit and striking out one.
Opposition stars: John Mabry was 2-for-3 with a double and a three-run homer, his third. Eric Chavez was 2-for-4 with a stolen base, his third. Greg Myers was 2-for-4 with a double.
The game: David Ortiz singled home a run in the first inning to give the Twins a 1-0 lead. Oakland came back in the second, as Mabry hit a three-run homer to put the Athletics up 3-1. The Twins tied it with productive outs, getting a sacrifice fly from Doug Mientkiewicz in the third and a run-scoring ground out by Corey Koskie in the fourth. Oakland regained the lead in the fifth on David Justice's RBI single. It stayed 4-3 until the seventh, when Mientkiewicz delivered a two-out two-run double to give the Twins a 5-4 advantage. The Athletics got a man to second base in both the eighth and ninth, but that was where he stayed.
WP: J. C. Romero (4-1). LP: Mike Venafro (2-2). S: Guardado (25).
Notes: Torii Hunter was 2-for-5 to make his average .306...Bobby Kielty was 1-for-3 with a walk and was batting .326...Pierzynski raised his average to .330...Twins starter Kyle Lohse pitched 3.2 innings, giving up four runs on six hits and five walks and striking out two...Jose Rodriguez made his first appearance as a Twin. He would make only three more. The two innings he pitched here were half his total as a Twin...Oakland starter Aaron Harang pitched five innings, giving up three runs on nine hits and a walk and striking out three...There will not be a player profile today, and there may not be for a few days. I don't really have the time, and none of the Oakland players mentioned today is all that interesting to me anyway. Sorry about that.
Record: The Twins were 47-36, in first place, leading Chicago by 6.5 games.