MINNESOTA 5, DETROIT 2 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Monday, September 9.
Batting stars: A. J. Pierzynski was 2-for-3. Dustan Mohr was 1-for-2 with a double and a walk. Doug Mientkiewicz was 1-for-3 with a double.
Pitching stars: Rick Reed pitched 6.2 innings, giving up two runs on seven hits and no walks and striking out five. J. C. Romero struck out two in 1.1 scoreless innings, giving up a walk. Eddie Guardado struck out two in a perfect inning.
Opposition stars: Eric Munson was 1-for-4 with a home run, his second. Omar Infante was 2-for-3. Eric Eckenstahler struck out four in two shutout innings, giving up one hit.
The game: There were no baserunners on either side for the first two innings. In the third, however, the first three Twins reached base, with Luis Rivas driving in a run with a bloop single and another run scoring on a ground out. The Tigers got a sacrifice fly in the fifth to cut the lead to 2-1. Cristian Guzman led off the sixth by circling the bases on a triple-plus-error to make it 3-1. Munson homered in the top of the seventh to again make it a one-run game at 3-2, but the Twins scored two in the bottom of the seventh. Mientkiewicz and Mohr led off the inning with back-to-back doubles and Jacque Jones later delivered an RBI single to increase the lead to 5-2. Detroit did not threaten again.
WP: Reed (14-7). LP: Mike Maroth (5-8). S: Guardado (40).
Notes: Pierzynski raised his average to .303.
Reed made his sixth consecutive strong start. Over that span he was 5-1, 1.41, giving up 37 hits and 3 walks while striking out 34 in 44.2 innings. He lowered his ERA from 4.63 to 3.79.
This was the major league debut of Eric Eckenstahler. As you can see above, it was a good one. He made seven appearances in 2002 and was unscored upon in five of them. Unfortunately, he gave up five runs in the other two, giving him an ERA of 5.63 for the season. He was a reliever his entire career. He started 2003 in AAA but came back to the majors in late July and did okay in twenty appearances, going 0-0, 2.87, although with a WHIP of 1.53. A left-hander, he appears to have been used as a LOOGY that season, pitching only 15.2 innings in his twenty games. This was as good as it would get for him. He had a poor year in AAA in 2004 and was traded to the Cubs in mid-August.. They released him after the season, he signed with Cincinnati for 2005, pitched poorly in AA, and then was done. At last report, Eric Eckenstahler was an insurance agent in Lake Forest, Illinois.
Record: The Twins were 83-61, in first place, leading Chicago by thirteen games.