OAKLAND 2, MINNESOTA 0 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Saturday, September 7.
Batting stars: Jacque Jones was 2-for-4 with a double. Luis Rivas was 2-for-3. A. J. Pierzynski was 1-for-3.
Pitching stars: Joe Mays pitched 7.1 innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on five hits and a walk and striking out one. Bob Wells pitched a perfect inning.
Opposition stars: Mark Mulder struck out ten in eight shutout innings, giving up seven hits and no walks. Miguel Tejada was 2-for-4. Scott Hatteberg was 1-for-3 with a walk.
The game: Oakland got on the board in the second, when Jermaine Dye reached second on an error and scored on a David Justice single. Meanwhile, five of the first six Twins struck out, with only Torii Hunter making contact on a ground out to third. Three of the strikeouts were called. The Twins threatened in the third, putting men on second and third with two out, but Cristian Guzman struck out to end the inning. In the fifth, the Twins loaded the bases with two out, but Guzman grounded out to short to end the inning. The Athletics added a run in the eighth when Ramon Hernandez singled, was bunted to second, and scored on a Hatteberg single to make the score 2-0. The Twins' last eight batters went out.
WP: Mulder (17-7). LP: Mays (3-6). S: Billy Koch (38).
Notes: Matthew LeCroy was the DH rather than David Ortiz. He was 0-for-4.
Michael Cuddyer was at first base, replacing Doug Mientkiewicz. He was 1-for-4, raising his average to .194.
Pierzynski raised his average back to .300.
J. C. Romero pitched two-thirds of an inning, giving up only a walk. His ERA was now 1.84.
This was the second-best outing of the year for Mays, topped only by a two-hit shutout he threw on August 16. He got his ERA below six at 5.67.
This was the best outing of the year to day for Mulder (he would have a better one a couple of weeks later). He was in the middle of a three-year stretch in which he would go 55-24, 3.36 with seven shutouts and seventeen complete games. He finished second to Roger Clemens in Cy Young balloting in 2001, and there was no compelling reason to favor Clemens over him that year. Oddly, he only made the all-star team once in that stretch, in 2003, although he made it again in 2004. Shoulder injuries cut his career short (only nine seasons, and in two of them he made only three appearances each), but from 2001-2005 he was among the top pitchers in the game.
Record: The Twins were 82-60, in first place, leading Chicago by fourteen games.