MINNESOTA 7, SEATTLE 2 IN SEATTLE
Date: Saturday, July 6.
Batting stars: Torii Hunter was 3-for-5 with a home run, his twentieth. David Ortiz was 2-for-3 with a two-run homer (his fifth), a double, and a hit-by-pitch. Matthew LeCroy was 2-for-5 with a two-run homer, his fourth.
Pitching stars: Kyle Lohse struck out nine in six shutout innings, giving up four hits and five walks. LaTroy Hawkins struck out two in 1.1 scoreless innings, giving up a hit and a walk. Mike Jackson pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.
Opposition stars: Mark McLemore was 2-for-3 with two walks. Edgar Martinez was 2-for-4 with a walk. Jeff Cirillo was 2-for-2.
The game: Seattle opened the first with two walks but could not score. Ortiz made them pay as he hit a two-run homer in the second to give the Twins a 2-0 lead. Each team then missed good chances, as the Mariners stranded five runners in innings two and three and the Twins left four in innings three and four. The Twins broke through in the fifth, as LeCroy hit a two-run homer to make it 4-0. Seattle stranded two more runners in the fifth. Hunter homered in the seventh to increase the lead to 5-0. In the seventh the Mariners finally got on the board off J. C. Romero. With the bases loaded and two out, Cirillo singled and Ben Davis walked, cutting the lead to 5-2. That was as close as Seattle would get, though. Cristian Guzman doubled home a run in the eighth, the Mariners stranded two more in the bottom of the eighth, and Dustan Mohr had an RBI single in the ninth. Seattle left sixteen men on base and was 1-for-14 with men in scoring position.
WP: Lohse (8-5). LP: Jamie Moyer (8-4). S: None.
Notes: Jacque Jones was not in the lineup, as Guzman again batted leadoff. He was 1-for-5 with a double...Hunter raised his average to .306...LeCroy was again the DH and raised his average to .324...Mohr was 2-for-5 and was batting .300...Brian Buchanan was again in right field rather than Bobby Kielty. He was 0-for-3...Tom Prince caught in place of A. J. Pierzynski, going 1-for-4...This was Lohse's highest game score of the season so far (68) and would end us as his third highest. It was the second consecutive game in which he issued five walks...Hawkins lowered his ERA to 1.52...Jamie Moyer was thirty-nine at this point in his career. He would pitch another ten years...The record for men left on base in a game appears to be twenty, set by the Yankees against Boston on September 21, 1956. They got fifteen hits and drew nine walks. They also got the benefit of five Red Sox errors. The Yankees lost 13-7.
Record: The Twins were 50-38, the first time they'd been twelve games over .500. They were in first place, leading Chicago by 7.5 games.