MINNESOTA 4, TEXAS 3 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Thursday, July 11.

Batting stars:  Corey Koskie was 2-for-2 with two doubles, two walks, and a stolen base, his eighth.  Doug Mientkiewicz was 1-for-4 with a double.

Pitching stars:  Eric Milton struck out ten in seven innings, giving up three runs on five hits and two walks.  Eddie Guardado pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two hits and striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Kevin Mench was 2-for-3 with a two-run homer, his tenth.  Herbert Perry was 2-for-4 with a double.  Juan Gonzalez was 2-for-4.

The game:  Michael Young led off the game with a triple and scored on a ground out to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead.  Mench hit a two-run homer in the second to make it 3-0.  Koskie got the Twins on the board in the bottom of the second, as he led off the inning with a walk, stole second, went to third on a wild pitch, and scored on a failed pickoff throw by the catcher.  The Twins tied it in the third on consecutive RBI doubles by Mientkiewicz and Koskie.  The Twins loaded the bases in the sixth on a walk and two hit batsmen, but did not score.  In the seventh, the Twins got walks to Jacque Jones and Cristian Guzman and a double by Koskie to take a 4-3 lead.  The Rangers put men on second and third in the eighth and first and second in the ninth, but did not score.

WP:  Milton (11-6).  LP:  Chan Ho Park (3-5).  S:  Guardado (27).

Notes:  Texas out-hit the Twins 9-4...The Twins had only four hits, but drew five walks and had two hit batsmen...Jones was restored to the leadoff spot and went 0-for-3 with a walk...Torii Hunter was 0-for-3 with a hit-by-pitch, dropping his average to .303...Bobby Kielty was 0-for-3 with a hit-by-pitch to make his average .312...A. J. Pierzynski was 0-for-4 and was batting .315...Park pitched 6.1 innings, giving up four runs (three earned) on three hits and five walks and striking out five...Kevin Mench was a solid outfielder for the Rangers for about five years.  He came up at the start of the 2002 season and was a mostly regular outfielder, seeing about equal time in left and right.  He hit .260 with fifteen homers and finished seventh in rookie of the year voting.  He got off to a poor start in 2003, went back to AAA for a month, and went on a tear when he got back, batting .354 from June 1 through July 8.  Unfortunately, he then got hurt and missed the rest of the season.  2004 was his best year, as he batted .279 with 26 home runs and an OPS of .874.  He again saw about equal time in left and right fields.  In 2005 he was the regular left fielder and had another fine season, batting .264 with 25 homers.  He was having another solid year for the Rangers in 2006 when he was traded to Milwaukee at the July deadline.  That was the beginning of the end for him.  He was terrible for the last two months of 2006 and decent, but no more, as a part-time player for the Brewers in 2007.  He signed back with Texas for 2008, but after a month in AAA was sold to Toronto.  He saw some part-time action with the Blue Jays that year, played in Japan in 2009, came back to play (poorly) for Washington in 2010, and then his career was over.  For Texas, he batted .274/.335/.480.  The rest of his career he batted .246/.288/.379.  He does seem to have been helped by playing in Arlington, but I don't know if that's the entire explanation.  At any rate, he at least was a pretty good player from 2002 through July of 2006.  At last report, Kevin Mench was working in the medical technologies industry.

Record:  The Twins were 51-39, in first place, leading Chicago by 7.5 games.