MINNESOTA 5, SEATTLE 2 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Tuesday, August 27.
Batting stars: Torii Hunter was 3-for-4 with a home run, his twenty-fifth. Jacque Jones was 2-for-4 with a home run, his twenty-fourth. A. J. Pierzynski was 2-for-4 with a triple.
Pitching stars: Joe Mays pitched six innings, giving up two runs on nine hits and three walks with one strikeout. LaTroy Hawkins pitched a perfect inning. Eddie Guardado pitched a perfect inning.
Opposition stars: Desi Relaford was 2-for-3 with a double. Carlos Guillen was 2-for-4. Dan Wilson was 2-for-4.
The game: Wilson singled home a run in the first inning to give the Mariners a 1-0 lead. The Twins started the third with a single, a double, and a single, but only scored once, as Pierzynski singled home a run to tie it 1-1. Seattle went ahead 2-1 in the top of the fourth, as Desi Relaford doubled home a run. The Twins took the lead for good in the bottom of the fourth. Hunter tied it with a home run, Doug Mientkiwicz singled, and Pierzynski delivered a two-out run-scoring triple to give the Twins a 3-2 advantage. Jones led off the fifth with a homer to make it 4-2. Hunter drove in the game's final run with an infield single in the seventh. The Mariners missed on a lot of promising starts to innings. They had men on first and second with one out in the second, started the third with two singles, left a man on second in the fourth, had men on first and second starting off the fifth, and got a pair of one-out singles in the sixth. They hit into three double plays and were 2-for-11 with men in scoring position.
WP: Mays (3-5). LP: Ismael Valdez (7-10). S: Guardado (37).
Notes: Hunter got his average back over .300 at .301.
Pierzynski was batting .303. The triple was his fifth of the season. He would hit six in 2002, a quarter of his career total.
Hawkins' ERA went to 2.22.
J. C. Romero pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a walk. His ERA fell to 1.53.
Guardado's ERA dropped to 2.67.
We will not have a player profile today, and may not have one for the remainder of this series. I enjoy doing them, but they take a lot of time. It's Ash Wednesday, which means the start of Lent coming on, which means mid-week worship services to prepare. Unfortunately, I only get the same number of hours in the day that everyone else does. Such is life.
Record: The Twins were 79-54, in first place, leading Chicago by sixteen and a half games.