BALTIMORE 3, MINNESOTA 1 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Thursday, August 15.
Batting stars: Cristian Guzman was 2-for-4. Luis Rivas was 1-for-3 with a triple and a walk.
Pitching stars: Kyle Lohse pitched seven innings, giving up two runs on four hits and two walks and striking out four. J. C. Romero pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit and striking out one.
Opposition stars: Jason Johnson pitched seven innings, giving up one run on six hits and a walk and striking out five. Chris Richard was 2-for-3 with a double and a walk. Chris Singleton was 2-for-4 with a home run (his seventh) and a double.
The game: The second batter of the game, Singleton, homered to give the Orioles a 1-0 lead. It stayed 1-0 until the fifth, when Hunter led off with a double and scored on a Dustan Mohr single. The Twins put men on first and second with none out in the sixth but they never advanced. Melvin Mora led off the eighth with a home run to give Baltimore a 2-1 lead. Rivas hit a one-out triple in the bottom of the eighth, but again never advanced. The Orioles led off the ninth with doubles by Jeff Conine and Richard to make it 3-1. The Twins went down in order in the ninth.
WP: Johnson (4-9). LP: Lohse (10-7). S: Jorge Julio (25).
Notes: Rivas was the leadoff batter, as Jacque Jones was out of the lineup. Mohr played left with Bobby Kielty in right.
Tom Prince was the catcher, as A. J. Pierzynski was out of the lineup. He went 1-for-3.
Mike Jackson made his first appearance since July 22, pitching the ninth inning. He went one inning, giving up one run on two hits.
Jason Johnson is another player who had a longer career than it would seem like he should have. Not that he was always terrible, but it would be hard to point to many seasons when he was actually good, either. For the most part, he seemed to pitch just well enough to stay in the rotation. He was signed by Pittsburgh as a free agent in 1992 and suffered a near-fatal car accident in 1996. He wasn’t breathing when found by first responders, but was revived and later found to have a fractured skull, clavicle, and mandible. Despite that, he came back to make his major league debut late in 1997, making three relief appearances. He was then chosen by Tampa Bay in the expansion draft and was with the big club for the first half of the season, going 2-5, 5.70 in thirteen starts. He was traded to Baltimore just before the 1999 season, came up to the big leagues in late May, and was in the Orioles rotation the rest of the season, going 8-7. 5.46. He was with Baltimore for most of 2000, both starting and relieving, and had the worst season of his career: 1-10, 7.02. He was twenty-six that season, and one would think he was just about out of chances. He made the Orioles' starting rotation in 2001, however, and for the next three years was a decent starter for them, going 25-36 but with an ERA of 4.25. That's not exactly an all-star, but it'll keep you in the rotation. A free agent after the 2003 season, he signed with Detroit and was in their rotation for two years, going 16-28, 4.83. He pretty much fell off a cliff after that, posting a 6.35 ERA with three teams in 2006. He went to Japan in 2007 but came back to the United States in 2008, appearing in sixteen games with the Dodgers. That was his last big league time, but he was in AAA with the Yankees in 2009 and played in the Atlantic League in 2011 and 2013. For his career, he was 56-100, 4.99. He appeared in 255 games and made 221 starts. A diabetic, he was the first major league player to get permission to wear an insulin pump on the field. At last report, Jason Johnson was living in the Tampa area and was a spokesman and fundraiser for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Record: The Twins had lost eight out of ten. They were 71-51, in first place, leading Chicago by twelve and a half games.