MINNESOTA 7, CHICAGO 3 IN CHICAGO
Date: Monday, August 19.
Batting stars: Jacque Jones was 3-for-4 with two home runs (his twentieth and twenty-first) and a double, scoring three times and driving in three. Doug Mientkiewicz was 3-for-4 with a home run, his tenth. Cristian Guzman was 2-for-4 with a home run, his seventh.
Pitching stars: Tony Fiore pitched three shutout innings, giving up two hits and a walk and striking out two. Bob Wells pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and striking out one.
Opposition stars: Aaron Rowand was 3-for-5 with a double. Mike Porzio pitched 4.2 innings of relief, giving up one run on two hits and striking out four. Carlos Lee was 1-for-5 with a two-run homer, his twentieth.
The game: The long ball was really prominent in this game. Jones and Guzman led off the game with back-to-back homers and David Ortiz hit a one-out homer to give the Twins a 3-0 lead. Jones hit a two-run homer in the second to make it 5-0. In the bottom of the third, with two out and a man on second, Lee and Magglio Ordonez hit back-to-back homers to cut the Twins lead to 5-3. The Twins opened the fifth with a Jones double and a Guzman single, putting men on first and third. Then came the only non-homer run of the game, as Jones scored on a double play to make the score 6-3. Mientkiewicz homered in the sixth to round out the scoring at 7-3. The White Sox had men on first and second with two out in the sixth but did not otherwise threaten after that.
WP: Brad Radke (5-3). LP: Gary Glover (5-6). S: None.
Notes: Ortiz' home run was his sixteenth of the season.
Torii Hunter was 0-for-4, dropping his average to .303.
A. J. Pierzynski was 0-for-4 to make his average .298. It was the first time he had been below .300 since July 24.
Radke pitched five innings, giving up three runs on seven hits and one walk with three strikeouts.
Fiore's ERA fell to 2.95. It was the first time it had been under 3.00 since June 28.
For the White Sox, Glover pitched four innings, giving up six runs on eight hits and no walks with no strikeouts.
Ordonez' home run was his twenty-eighth.
Left-hander Mike Porzio appeared in three major league seasons. He was signed by the Cubs as a free agent in 1993. He was released three times, by the Cubs, Boston, and Baltimore, and spent four years in independent leagues before he made his major league debut. He spent 1998 in Class A with Atlanta and Colorado, was jumped all the way to AAA at the start of 1999 and was promoted to the majors in July of that year. His readiness is somewhat questionable--in 35 AAA games of relief, he was 5-1, 3.38, but with a WHIP of 1.73, mostly due to the fact that he walked 30 batters in 42.2 innings. He appeared in 16 games for the Rockies, pitched 14.2 innings, and posted an ERA of 8.59 with a WHIP of 2.11. It would be three years before he got to the majors again. He spent 2000 mostly in AA with Colorado and was in AAA with the White Sox in 2001. He made the major league club out of spring training in 2002 and did well in his first six appearances, but did poorly in his next four and was sent back to AAA. He came back to the majors at the start of August and had a tremendous month, posting an ERA of 1.10 and a WHIP of 0.55 in 10 appearances (16.1 innings). That was pretty much his career highlight, as he went back to being Mike Porzio in September, posting an ERA of 6.75. He was mostly back in AAA in 2003, making three starts for the White Sox in July. That was it for his major league career, but he continued to pitch for several more years. He was apparently injured most of 2004, making just three minor league appearances in the Cleveland organization. He was in AA with Atlanta in 2005 and then pitched for Bridgeport in the Atlantic League until 2010. His major league record was 3-3, 5.90, 1.58 WHIP. He pitched 71,2 innings in 51 games. He did have one really good month, though, and it's one more really good month than a lot of people have. Mike Porzio is now a scout for the Milwaukee Brewers. He also owns The Clubhouse Baseball and Softball Training Academy in the greater New York area.
Record: The Twins were 74-52, in first place, leading Chicago by fifteen and a half games.