MINNESOTA 3, SEATTLE 2 IN SEATTLE

Date:  Wednesday, September 4.

Batting stars:  Jacque Jones was 3-for-5.  David Ortiz was 2-for-4 with a home run (his seventeenth) and a double.  Torii Hunter was 2-for-3 with a double and a walk.

Pitching star:  Rick Reed pitched 7.1 innings, giving up one run on six hits and a walk and striking out five.

Opposition stars:  Edgar Martinez was 2-for-3 with a home run (his eleventh) and a walk.  Desi Relaford was 2-for-4.  Jamie Moyer pitched eight innings, giving up three runs on twelve hits and a walk and striking out two.

The game:  Corey Koskie's RBI single put the Twins ahead 1-0 in the first inning.  The Twins had men on first and third with none out in the fifth, but a double play by Cristian Guzman meant the Twins only scored once to make it 2-0.  An Ortiz homer in the eighth made it 3-0.  Meanwhile, the Mariners did not get a man past first base until the seventh.  They got on the board in the eighth, as Jose Offerman led off the inning with a home run.  Martinez led off the ninth with another home run, making the score 3-2, but Seattle did not get the tying run on base.

WP:  Reed (13-7).  LP:  Jamie Moyer (13-7).  S:  Eddie Guardado (39).

Notes:  Presumably, the Tuesday night game was rained out.

Michael Cuddyer played right field, as both Bobby Kielty and Dustan Mohr were on the bench.  Cuddyer went 1-for-4.

In his last five starts, Reed had pitched 38 innings with an ERA of 1.18.  He was 4-1 in those starts.  He would have three more strong starts before struggling in his next-to-last start of the season.

Offerman's home run was his fifth of the season.

Ichiro Suzuki was 1-for-4 in this game.  For the season he batted .321/.388/.425.  Against the Twins in 2002, however, he was 5-for-28 with two walks for a line of .179/.233/.179.  For his career, however, he has batted .331/.362/.415 against Minnesota.

Record:  The Twins were 81-59, in first place, leading Chicago by 12.5 games.