2002 Rewind: Game Ninety-eight

MINNESOTA 5, DETROIT 1 IN DETROIT

Date:  Friday, July 19.

Batting stars:  Doug Mientkiewicz was 2-for-4 with a home run, his fourth.  Corey Koskie was 2-for-4 with a home run, his ninth.  David Ortiz was 2-for-4 with a home run, his eighth.

Pitching stars:  Kyle Lohse pitched six innings, giving up one run on six hits and a walk and striking out one.  Johan Santana struck out four in three shutout innings, giving up two hits and no walks.

Opposition stars:  Carlos Pena was 2-for-4 with a double.  Bobby Higginson was 2-for-4.

The game:  Each team put two men on in the first but did not score.  The Twins broke through in the fourth, as Koskie and Ortiz opened the inning with back-to-back homers and Luis Rivas added an RBI single later in the inning.  The Tigers opened the fifth with three consecutive singles but could only score one run, cutting the lead to 3-1.  Mientkiewicz hit a home run in the sixth and Denny Hocking contributed a run-scoring single in the seventh to round out the scoring.

WP:  Lohse (9-5).  LP:  Brian Moehler (1-1).  S:  Santana (1).

Notes:  Hocking started at shortstop in place of Cristian Guzman.  He went 1-for-5 and hit into two double plays.

This was Lohse's third consecutive solid start.  He pitched nineteen innings and gave up just two earned runs on fifteen hits and seven walks with sixteen strikeouts.  His next start would also be a very good one.

The three-inning save was the only save of Santana's career.  He would make two more starts, two more relief appearances, and then five more starts before going to the bullpen for the month of September.  He wanted to start, but while he wasn't bad in that role he was better as a reliever in 2002:  ERA of 2.28 versus 3.34, WHIP of 1.12 versus 1.26.

Torii Hunter was 0-for-4 and was batting .310.

Dustan Mohr was 1-for-4 and was batting .302.

Detroit starter Brian Moehler struck out seven in six innings, but gave up four runs on nine hits and no walks.  This was one of three starts he would make for the Tigers in 2002.

Moehler had a pretty long career, especially considering that he wasn't all that good.  He came up to make two September starts in 1996 and then was a rotation starter for Detroit from 1997-2000.  He was good in 1998, going 14-13, 3.90, 1.25 WHIP.  He was not good in the other years, posting ERAs of 4.50 or higher and WHIPS above 1.4.  He made one start at the beginning of 2001, then was injured and missed the rest of the season.  He was still trying to make it back in 2002.  He had pitched well in his first two starts, and not that badly in this one.  This was his last appearance as a Tiger, however, as he was traded to Cincinnati.  He finished the year there, not pitching very well, and went to Houston as a free agent for 2003.  He was able to make just three starts for them, again missing most of the season due to injury.  He was in AA for Atlanta in 2004, making twenty starts, then spent 2005-2006 with Florida and 2007-2010 back with Houston.  He was a starter all but one of those years, 2007.  That was actually the best year of the bunch, as he posted an ERA of 4.07 and a WHIP of 1.41.  Those aren't great numbers, but they're better than his numbers as a starter.  In the other years he always had an ERA above 4.5, once over five and once over six.  His WHIP was over 1.5 every season except 2008, when it was 1.35.  For his career he was 84-107, 4.81, 1.46 WHIP.  It's hard to see why teams kept leaving him in their starting rotation, but they did--Brian Moehler made 252 major league starts.  At last report, he was a scout for the Boston Red Sox.

Record:  The Twins were 57-41, in first place, leading Chicago by twelve games.

Happy Birthday–January 10

Harry Wright (1835)
Chick Stahl (1873)
Del Pratt (1888)
Ziggy Sears (1892)
Max Patkin (1920)
George Strickland (1926)
Jim O'Toole (1937)
Willie McCovey (1938)
Chuck Dobson (1944)
Wilfredo Sanchez (1948)
Richard Dotson (1959)
Kelvin Torve (1960)
Wally Bell (1965)
Kevin Baez (1967)
Gary Rath (1973)
Adam Kennedy (1976)

 Outfielder Ziggy Sears played in the minors for sixteen years, mostly in the Texas League.  He once drove in eleven runs in a game.  He was a National League umpire from 1934-1945.

Max Patkin was a well-known baseball clown from 1944-1995.

Wilfredo Sanchez was a star in Cuba from 1968-1986, winning five batting titles.

Wally Bell was a major league umpire from 1992-2013, when he passed away from a heart attack.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–January 10

2002 Rewind: Game Ninty-seven

MINNESOTA 8, CLEVELAND 6 IN CLEVELAND

Date:  Thursday, July 18.

Batting stars:  Jacque Jones was 3-for-5 with a home run, his fourteenth.  Torii Hunter was 2-for-3 with a walk and a home run, his twenty-third.  David Ortiz was 2-for-5 with a double.

Pitching stars:  Kevin Frederick pitched two shutout innings, giving up only a walk.  Tony Fiore pitched two shutout innings, giving up two hits and striking out one.  LaTroy Hawkins pitched a perfect inning, striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Milton Bradley was 2-for-4 with a grand slam, his fifth homer.  Ricky Gutierrez was 2-for-4.  Omar Vizquel was 2-for-5.

The game:  Jones led off the game with a home run.  Ellis Burks countered with a home run in the bottom of the first to make it 1-1.  The Indians loaded the bases with none out in the second, but could only score one on a double play.  The Twins tied it in the third on Ortiz' RBI single, but Cleveland went back in front in the bottom of the third on Bradley's grand slam, taking a 6-2 lead.  The Twins got back into it in the fifth.  Cristian Guzman tripled, Ortiz doubled, and Hunter hit a two-run homer to cut the margin to 6-5.  The Twins went into the lead to stay in the seventh.  Bobby Kielty had an RBI single and Luis Rivas delivered a two-out two-run single to put the Twins up 8-6.  The Indians threatened in the bottom of the ninth.  Their first two batters were retired, but Vizquel singled and Burks walked.  Lee Stevens came up representing the winning run, but he grounded out to second to end the game.

WP:  Tony Fiore (8-2).  LP:  Ricardo Rincon (1-4).  S:  Eddie Guardado (31).

Notes:  Hunter raised his average to .313.

Kielty was 1-for-4 with a walk and was batting .312.

A. J. Pierzynski went 1-for-5 to make his average .300.

Juan Rincon made his last major league start.  It did not go well, as he pitched just three innings and allowed six runs on seven hits and two walks with no strikeouts.  He would be sent back to Edmonton after this game, but would return in a month to pitch out of the bullpen.

Hawkins lowered his ERA to 1.48.

Ryan Drese started for Cleveland.  He lasted five innings, giving up five runs on ten hits and no walks and striking out four.

Stevens entered the game in the seventh as a pinch-hitter for Jim Thome.  One assumes Thome was either ill or injured, as there is no other apparent reason one would make that change.  I would guess Twins fans were quite happy to see Stevens come up in the ninth as the winning run rather than Thome.

This was Stevens' last year.  He wasn't a bad batter, although he wasn't very good in 2002.  He came up with the California Angels in 1990 and had his first full season in the majors in 1992.  He'd had a big year in AAA Edmonton in 1991 and done well as a September call-up, so presumably the Angels thought they had their first baseman of the future.  It didn't work out that way.  He hit just .221/.288/.349 in 106 games, and presumably only stayed for a full season because the Angels didn't have other options at first base (their next best option was a fading Alvin Davis, in his last season).  Stevens would not get another chance in the majors until 1996, spending 1993 in AAA with Toronto and the next two season in Japan.  Texas signed him in 1996, and in 1997 he had his best year, batting .300 with 21 home runs.  It was the first of five consecutive seasons in which he was   He had two more solid seasons with the Rangers, then was traded to Montreal.  He was not quite as good with the Expos as he'd been with the Rangers, but he posted an OPS of around .800 both seasons.  The bottom fell out in 2002, however, as he was batting just .190 with ten homers when he was traded to Cleveland in late June in a trade that sent, among others, Cliff Lee to Cleveland and Bartolo Colon to Montreal.  The change of scenery didn't help him much, as he ended the season batting .204 with 15 home runs.  He signed with Tampa Bay for 2003, was released, and signed with Milwaukee, but played in just eighteen AAA games before his career ended.  For his career, he batted .254/.323/.448 in ten seasons, not great numbers but not terrible, either.  He has been a minor league coach, and was the batting coach for the Grand Junction Rockies in 2017.

Record:  The Twins were 56-41, in first place, leading Chicago by eleven games.

Happy Birthday–July 9

Bill Thomas (1905)
Johnny Washington (1916)
John Kibler (1928)
Julio Navarro (1936)
Ralph Terry (1936)
Masaaki Mori (1937)
Al Clark (1948)
Joe Wallis (1952)
Ivan DeJesus (1953)
Otis Nixon (1959)
Stan Javier (1964)
Jay Powell (1972)
Gabriel Moya (1995)

Bill Thomas pitched in the minors from 1924-1952. He set records for games pitched (1,016), wins (383), losses (347), innings (5,995), hits allowed (6,721), and runs allowed (3,098).

Outfielder/first baseman Johnny Washington played in the Negro Leagues for nearly twenty years.

John Kibler was a National League umpire from 1963-1989.

Masaaki Mori was involved with twenty-seven pennant winners in Japan, sixteen as a player, three as a coach, and eight as a manager.

Al Clark was a long-time American League umpire.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–July 9