MINNESOTA 4, TEXAS 3 IN MINNESOTA (11 INNINGS)

Date:  Friday, July 12.

Batting stars:  Dustan Mohr was 3-for-3 with a double and a walk.  Cristian Guzman was 2-for-5 with a triple and a double.  Torii Hunter was 2-for-5.

Pitching stars:  Rick Reed pitched seven innings, giving up two runs on six hits and no walks and striking out four.  LaTroy Hawkins pitched a perfect inning with one strikeout.  Tony Fiore pitched a perfect inning with one strikeout.

Opposition stars:  Ivan Rodriguez was 2-for-3 with a triple.  Alex Rodriguez was 2-for-5 with a home run, his twenty-eighth.  Michael Young was 2-for-5 with a triple.

The game:  In the second, Hunter led off with a single and David Ortiz walked.  Mohr followed with an RBI double, then there were two run-scoring ground outs to put the Twins ahead 3-0.  The Twins stayed stuck at three, however, and the Rangers got back into the game.  Michael Young tripled home Frank Catalanotto in the third to cut the lead to 3-1.  Alex Rodriguez homered in the sixth to make it 3-2.  The Twins missed chances to get insurance runs.  Ortiz led off the seventh with a double but his pinch-runner, Michael Cuddyer, was stranded at third.  In the eighth, Guzman hit a one-out triple and was also stranded.  Still, the Twins were up 3-2 with Eddie Guardado ready to pitch the ninth.  Guardado started by giving up singles to Juan Gonzalez and Rafael Palmeiro (two pretty good batters), and Ivan Rodriguez hit a sacrifice fly to tie the score.  The Twins got Hunter to third with two out in the ninth but could not score.  They had the bases loaded in the tenth and were turned aside.  Mohr led off the eleventh with a single and was bunted to second.  Luis Rivas grounded out, but Jacque Jones delivered a line drive single to left to bring home the winning run.

WP:  Fiore (7-2).  LP:  Hideki Irabu (3-8).  S:  None.

Notes:  Hunter raised his average to .304...Mohr went up to .306...A. J. Pierzynski was 0-for-2 (pinch-hit for in the seventh) and was batting .312...Hawkins lowered his ERA to 1.47...It was Guardado's fourth blown save.  He had given up runs in four of his last seven appearances, but would not give up another for a month...Fiore was trying to recover from a rough stretch.  He had given up ten runs in his last five appearances (six innings), raising his ERA from 2.12 to 3.59...I don't normally associate Ivan Rodriguez with triples, but he had 51 of them for his career.  Partly that's just because he played so long, but in every year from 1992 through 2010 he had at least one triple.  His high was five in 2005...My memory was that Alex Rodriguez, while still good, hadn't been that great for Texas.  My memory was completely wrong.  In three seasons there, he batted .305/.395/.615 and hit 156 home runs.  He finished sixth in MVP voting in 2001, second in 2002 (to Miguel Tejada--there really is no way Tejada should've won the award over Rodriguez.  Tejada had a fine year, but his OPS was 150 points less than Rodriguez', they played the same position, and Rodriguez won the Gold Glove), and won the award in 2003.  He also won the Gold Glove in 2003, won the Silver Slugger in all three seasons, and made the all-star team in all three seasons.  People held the huge contract against him, and he was never really The People's Choice even when he was in Seattle, but there's no question that he was a great, great player for three years for the Texas Rangers.

Record:  The Twins were 52-39, in first place, leading Chicago by 8.5 games.