MINNESOTA 11, CHICAGO 6 IN CHICAGO
Date: Monday, July 22.
Batting stars: Jacque Jones was 5-for-6 with a home run (his fifteenth) and two doubles. Dustan Mohr was 2-for-5 with a three-run homer, his ninth. David Ortiz was 2-for-5 with a double and a stolen base.
Pitching star: Tony Fiore pitched three innings, giving up one run on three hits and no walks and striking out one.
Opposition stars: Ray Durham was 3-for-5 with three doubles. Carlos Lee was 2-for-4 with a home run (his sixteenth), a double, and a walk, driving in four. Frank Thomas was 2-for-4 with a home run, his fifteenth.
The game: The Twins took an early lead, as Bobby Kielty singled home a run in the first and Jones hit a two-run homer in the second to make it 3-0. Three singles and a walk failed to produce a Twins run in the third, as they lost two men on the bases. Ray Durham got the White Sox on the board in the bottom of the third with an RBI double, but the Twins got two in the fifth on a run-scoring double by Doug Mientkiewicz and an RBI single by Denny Hocking. Chicago closed to 5-3 in the bottom of the fifth, as Lee hit a two-run homer. The Twins took control of the game with a six-run sixth. Ortiz brought home two with a double, one scored on a fielder's choice, and Mohr hit a three-run homer. Thomas hit a solo homer in the sixth and Lee doubled home two in the ninth, but the White Sox did not get back into the game.
WP: Rick Reed (8-5). LP: Todd Ritchie (5-14). S: None.
Notes: Kielty again played center field, withi Torii Hunter out of the lineup. Hunter would return the next day. Kielty went 2-for-5 to make his average .328.
Hocking was again at second base, replacing Luis Rivas. Rivas would miss one more game and then be back in the lineup. Hocking went 1-for-4 with a walk.
Reed pitched five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk, striking out one.
This was Ortiz' first stolen base of the season. It was also his last stolen base of the season. It came in the third inning with two out and no one else on. He had seventeen stolen bases in his career, with a high of four in 2013, when he was thirty-seven. He was caught stealing nine times.
I chose Rocky Biddle for today's profile for no reason other than his name is Rocky Biddle. His given name is Lee Francis Biddle--I don't know why he was called Rocky, but Rocky Biddle sounds like a lot better ballplayer than Lee Biddle. A right-handed pitcher, the White Sox drafted him in the first round in 1997. He did not pitch very well in the low minors from 1997-98, then had Tommy John surgery and missed all of 1999. He came back strong in 2000, having an excellent year in AA and getting four starts in August with Chicago. He had his first full season in the majors in 2001, but was not very good--7-8, 5.39. He moved to the bullpen in 2002 and did somewhat better, though nothing to get too excited about. He was traded to Montreal for the 2003 season and took up space in their bullpen for a couple of years, posting a combined ERA of 5.83 and a combined WHIP of 1.60. For some reason, the Expos made him their closer in 2003, and he picked up 34 saves despite an ERA of 4.65, a WHIP of 1.55, and an ERA plus of 97. That's worse than Ron Davis. He was in the majors for four full seasons and part of a fifth despite never posting an ERA under four and never posting a WHIP under 1.40. His career numbers are 20-30, 5.47, 46 saves, 1.53 WHIP. Some guys tear up the minors for years and never get a chance, other guys do nothing in the majors and get chance after chance and even get put in positions of prominence. Nobody ever said baseball was fair.
Record: The Twins were 60-41, in first place, leading Chicago by fourteen games.