OAKLAND 6,  MINNESOTA 3 IN OAKLAND

Date:  Saturday, August 31.

Batting stars:  Doug Mientkiewicz was 2-for-4.  Corey Koskie was 1-for-2 with a double and two walks.  Dustan Mohr was 1-for-2 with a home run, his eleventh.

Pitching star:  Kyle Lohse pitched seven innings, giving up three runs on four hits and a walk and striking out four.

Opposition stars:  Cory Lidle pitched 7.1 innings, giving up one run on four hits and a walk and striking out six.  Eric Chavez was 3-for-4 with a home run (his thirty-first) and a double, driving in four.  Ray Durham was 1-for-3 with a walk.

The game:  Oakland took the lead in the first inning, getting an RBI double from Chavez and scoring another run on a ground out to go up 2-0.  It stayed 2-0, with neither team even mounting much of a threat, until the sixth, when back-to-back two-out doubles by Koskie and David Ortiz cut the lead to 2-1.  Chavez got the run back for the Athletics when he led off the bottom of the seventh with a home run to make it 3-1.  The Twins tied it in the eighth.  Mohr hit a one-out pinch-hit homer to make it 3-2 and Torii Hunter delivered a two-out RBI single later in the inning to tie it 3-3.  The normally reliable J. C. Romero came in to pitch the eighth, but he did not have it this day.  With one out, Ramon Hernandez doubled and Durham walked.  A ground out put men on second and third with two down.  Miguel Tejada was intentionally walked, but Chavez and Jermaine Dye delivered back-to-back singles, with Chavez driving home two and Dye one, to give the Oaklands a 6-3 lead.  The Twins got a two-out walk in the ninth but no more.

WP:  Jim Mecir (5-3).  LP:  Romero (8-2).  S:  Billy Koch (37).

Notes:  A. J. Pierzynski dropped back below .300 with an 0-for-4.  He was batting .298.

Bobby Kielty also dropped below .300 with an 0-for-4.  He was batting .295.

I know we don't put a lot of stock in won-lost records, but those of some of the Twins relievers in 2002 were rather remarkable.  Tony Fiore ended up 10-3.  Romero was 9-2.  LaTroy Hawkins was 6-0.  That's 25-5 from the primary set-up men.  It seems like that shows:  a) that those three pitched very well, and b) the Twins got a lot of late wins that season.

Record:  The Twins were 80-57, in first place, leading Chicago by fourteen games.

OAKLAND 4, MINNESOTA 2 IN OAKLAND

Date:  Friday, August 30.

Batting stars:  Jacque Jones was 2-for-3 with a home run, his twenty-fifth.  Luis Rivas was 1-for-2 with a double and a walk.  A. J. Pierzynski was 1-for-2 with a double.

Pitching stars:  Brad Radke pitched six innings, giving up three runs (two earned) on seven hits and a walk and striking out three.  Bob Wells pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit and striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Ray Durham was 4-for-5 with a home run (his twelfth) and two doubles.  Tim Hudson struck out seven in 6.1 innings, giving up two runs on eight hits and two walks.  Mark Ellis was 2-for-4 with a double.

The game:  Jones led off the top of the first with a home run, but Durham led off the bottom of the first with a home run, leaving the score tied 1-1.  Pierzynski doubled home a run in the top of the second, but David Justice tripled and scored on an Ellis single in the bottom of the second to tie it 2-2.  The Twins started the third with a double, a single, and a walk but did not score.  In the fifth, Eric Chavez delivered a two-out RBI single to give the Athletics their first lead a 3-2.  The Twins put men on first and second with one out in the seventh, but a double play ended the inning.  Durham and Scott Hatteberg opened the bottom of the seventh with doubles that made the score 4-2.  The Twins went down in order in the eighth and ninth.

WP:  Hudson (12-9)  LP:  Radke (6-4).  S:  Billy Koch (36).

Notes:  Bobby Kielty was 1-for-4 and was batting .300.  It would be the last day of the season in which he would be at .300 or above.  He would end the season at .291.

Pierzynski was batting .302.

In Wells' last twenty-six appearances of the season, he gave up zero runs in twenty-one of them.  In the other five, he gave up three twice, four twice, and five once.  So, for all his good appearances, his ERA only went from 6.26 to 5.90.

Billy Koch had been the closer for Toronto for three seasons before being traded to Oakland before the 2002 season.  He had a fine season for them, going 11-4, 3.27 with 44 saves.  He led the league in appearances with 84 and in games finished with 79.  He finished eighteenth in MVP voting.  It was the last good year he would have.  He was traded to the White Sox before the 2003 season, pitched poorly, lost the closer job to Tom Gordon, and was never a closer again.  He would pitch only one more season and then was out of baseball at age twenty-nine.  According to b-r.com, "Koch, his wife and their children have been suffering from a condition, called Morgellons disease by those who believe it to be a true condition but generally thought among the medical community to be a type of delusional parasitosis, which can cause sufferers to experience what they perceive as a crawling feeling and an expulsion of filaments from under the skin. This condition is what many people feel led to his demise in the major leagues."  Some very brief googling makes me doubt the "generally thought" part of that--I'm not sure there is a general consensus--but it does appear to be a matter of controversy.

Record:  The Twins were 80-56, in first place, leading Chicago by fifteen games.