MINNESOTA 8, KANSAS CITY 6 IN KANSAS CITY

Date:  Thursday, August 22.

Batting stars:  Cristian Guzman was 3-for-5 with a home run (his eighth), a double, and three RBIs.  Luis Rivas was 2-for-4 with a home run (his fourth) and a double.  Jacque Jones was 2-for-5 with a home run, his twenty-third.

Pitching stars:  Johan Santana pitched six innings, giving up three runs on six hits and two walks and striking out five.  J. C. Romero retired all four batters he faced, striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Raul Ibanez was 3-for-5 with three RBIs.  Mike Sweeney was 2-for-3 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch.  A. J. Hinch wsa 2-for-4 with a double.

The game:  The Twins jumped on Kansas City starter Runelvys Hernandez for three runs in the first inning.  Jones led off the game with a home run.  Guzman followed with a double.  With two out, Torii Hunter had an RBI single and stole second.  Doug Mientkiewicz doubled him home to make it 3-0.  Raul Ibanez singled home a run in the bottom of the first to make it 3-1.  In the third, Carlos Beltran homered and Ibanez delivered another RBI single to tie it 3-3.  It stayed tied until the fifth, when Rivas doubled and scored on a Guzman single to give the Twins a 4-3 lead.  Guzman struck again in the seventh, hitting a two-run homer to make it 6-3.  The Twins added two more in the eighth on a two-run homer by Rivas.  They needed them, because the Royals scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth.  Luis Ordaz and Chuck Knoblauch singled, putting men on first and third with one out.  Beltran grounded out, bringing in a run.  Mike Sweeney walked, followed by singles by Joe Randa and Ibanez, making the score 8-6 with men on first and third.  Kit Pellow then hit a fly ball to deep center field to end the game.

WP:  Santana (7-5).  LP:  Hernandez (3-2).  S:  Eddie Guardado (35).

Notes:  I suspect there were not very many games in which Guzman and Rivas combined for two home runs, two doubles, and five RBIs.

Torii Hunter was 1-for-4 to make his average .303.

A. J. Pierzynski was 2-for-4 to get his average back up to .301.

Tony Fiore pitched two-thirds of an inning without giving up a run, getting his ERA back down to 2.92.

Romero lowered his ERA to 1.58.

Eddie Guardado came in with two out in the ninth and the score 8-5.  He gave up the single to Ibanez, then retired Pellow to end the game.  He lowered his ERA to 2.77.

This was the sixth major league start for Runelvys Hernandez.  In his first five, he had gone 3-1, 3.03.  In his next five, including this one, he would go 1-3, 6.10.  He was twenty-four at this point, having been signed as a free agent in 1997.  My guess is that he was in a foreign developmental league for a while, because b-r.com doesn't give anything for him until 2001, when he was at Class A Burlington.  He was pitching well in AA Wichita in 2002 when the Royals called him up in late July.  Overall, his 2002 numbers weren't bad for a rookie with that little experience:  4-4, 4.36, 1.36 WHIP.  He got off to a tremendous start in 2003, going 4-0, 1.36 in six April starts.  He then got hurt, struggled through three May starts, went on the disabled list for two months, and was never the same pitcher again.  He tried to come back in July, making seven starts, but then missed the entire 2004 season with Tommy John surgery.  We've heard a lot of success stories from pitchers after Tommy John surgery, but he wasn't one of them.  He struggled through a poor 2005, was no better in 2006 (when he went back to AAA for a month and a half, and then became a free agent.  He was signed and released three times in 2007, by Boston, the Yankees, and PIttsburgh, not appearing in the majors with any of them.  He signed with Houston for 2008 and got four more starts in the majors, but did not pitch well in any of them.  He pitched in Korea in 2009, in Mexico in 2010, and played winter ball through 2012-13.  Then Runelvys left the building for good.  His record was 25-36, 5.50, 1.55 WHIP in 454.2 innings (82 starts), but his is truly a story of what might have been.  No information about what Runelvys Hernandez is doing these days was readily available.

Record:  The Twins were 76-53, in first place, leading Chicago by sixteen games.