MINNESOTA 8, KANSAS CITY 6 IN KANSAS CITY

Date:  Thursday, August 22.

Batting stars:  Cristian Guzman was 3-for-5 with a home run (his eighth), a double, and three RBIs.  Luis Rivas was 2-for-4 with a home run (his fourth) and a double.  Jacque Jones was 2-for-5 with a home run, his twenty-third.

Pitching stars:  Johan Santana pitched six innings, giving up three runs on six hits and two walks and striking out five.  J. C. Romero retired all four batters he faced, striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Raul Ibanez was 3-for-5 with three RBIs.  Mike Sweeney was 2-for-3 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch.  A. J. Hinch wsa 2-for-4 with a double.

The game:  The Twins jumped on Kansas City starter Runelvys Hernandez for three runs in the first inning.  Jones led off the game with a home run.  Guzman followed with a double.  With two out, Torii Hunter had an RBI single and stole second.  Doug Mientkiewicz doubled him home to make it 3-0.  Raul Ibanez singled home a run in the bottom of the first to make it 3-1.  In the third, Carlos Beltran homered and Ibanez delivered another RBI single to tie it 3-3.  It stayed tied until the fifth, when Rivas doubled and scored on a Guzman single to give the Twins a 4-3 lead.  Guzman struck again in the seventh, hitting a two-run homer to make it 6-3.  The Twins added two more in the eighth on a two-run homer by Rivas.  They needed them, because the Royals scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth.  Luis Ordaz and Chuck Knoblauch singled, putting men on first and third with one out.  Beltran grounded out, bringing in a run.  Mike Sweeney walked, followed by singles by Joe Randa and Ibanez, making the score 8-6 with men on first and third.  Kit Pellow then hit a fly ball to deep center field to end the game.

WP:  Santana (7-5).  LP:  Hernandez (3-2).  S:  Eddie Guardado (35).

Notes:  I suspect there were not very many games in which Guzman and Rivas combined for two home runs, two doubles, and five RBIs.

Torii Hunter was 1-for-4 to make his average .303.

A. J. Pierzynski was 2-for-4 to get his average back up to .301.

Tony Fiore pitched two-thirds of an inning without giving up a run, getting his ERA back down to 2.92.

Romero lowered his ERA to 1.58.

Eddie Guardado came in with two out in the ninth and the score 8-5.  He gave up the single to Ibanez, then retired Pellow to end the game.  He lowered his ERA to 2.77.

This was the sixth major league start for Runelvys Hernandez.  In his first five, he had gone 3-1, 3.03.  In his next five, including this one, he would go 1-3, 6.10.  He was twenty-four at this point, having been signed as a free agent in 1997.  My guess is that he was in a foreign developmental league for a while, because b-r.com doesn't give anything for him until 2001, when he was at Class A Burlington.  He was pitching well in AA Wichita in 2002 when the Royals called him up in late July.  Overall, his 2002 numbers weren't bad for a rookie with that little experience:  4-4, 4.36, 1.36 WHIP.  He got off to a tremendous start in 2003, going 4-0, 1.36 in six April starts.  He then got hurt, struggled through three May starts, went on the disabled list for two months, and was never the same pitcher again.  He tried to come back in July, making seven starts, but then missed the entire 2004 season with Tommy John surgery.  We've heard a lot of success stories from pitchers after Tommy John surgery, but he wasn't one of them.  He struggled through a poor 2005, was no better in 2006 (when he went back to AAA for a month and a half, and then became a free agent.  He was signed and released three times in 2007, by Boston, the Yankees, and PIttsburgh, not appearing in the majors with any of them.  He signed with Houston for 2008 and got four more starts in the majors, but did not pitch well in any of them.  He pitched in Korea in 2009, in Mexico in 2010, and played winter ball through 2012-13.  Then Runelvys left the building for good.  His record was 25-36, 5.50, 1.55 WHIP in 454.2 innings (82 starts), but his is truly a story of what might have been.  No information about what Runelvys Hernandez is doing these days was readily available.

Record:  The Twins were 76-53, in first place, leading Chicago by sixteen games.

CHICAGO 10, MINNESOTA 1 IN CHICAGO

Date:  Wednesday, August 21.

Batting stars:  Matthew LeCroy was 2-for-4.  Denny Hocking was 1-for-3 with a walk.

Pitching stars:  Mike Jackson pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and a walk and striking out one.  LaTroy Hawkins struck out two in a scoreless inning, giving up two hits.

Opposition stars:  Magglio Ordonez was 3-for-5 with a home run (his twenty-ninth) and a double.  Willie Harris was 3-for-4 with a home run, his second.  Jose Valentin was 2-for-5 with two home runs, his eighteenth and nineteenth, driving in five.  Mark Buerhle pitched seven innings, giving up one run on seven hits and a walk and striking out five.

The game:  The Twins scored first, getting consecutive two-out singles from Torii Hunter, LeCroy, and Bobby Kielty to take a 1-0 lead.  It was all White Sox after that, and it didn't take long for them to control the game.  Valentin hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the first to make it 2-1.  In the second, Aaron Rowand hit an RBI single which was followed by Valentin's second homer, this a three-run shot that made it 6-1.  The only thing even resembling a threat that the Twins had after that was in the fourth, when they put men on first and second with two out.  Harris homered in the bottom of the fourth, Mark Johnson had a two-run single in the fifth, and Ordonez homered in the eighth to close out the scoring.

WP:  Buehrle (16-9).  LP:  Joe Mays (2-5).  S:  None.

Notes:  LeCroy was again the DH, with David Ortiz out of the lineup.

Denny Hocking was again in the lineup at third, replacing Corey Koskie.  This was the second consecutive game Koskie missed, but he would be back in the lineup the next day.

The two non-regulars who started went 3-for-7 with a walk.  The seven regulars who started went 5-for-25.

Hunter was 1-for-3 to make his average .303.

Coming off a complete game shutout, in which he threw 121 pitches, Joe Mays had his shortest outing of the season.  He lasted just two innings, giving up six runs (five earned) on five hits and no walks and striking out one.  He threw 53 pitches.  It was not, however, his worst game of the season, at least by game scores.  He'd already had two worse games and had one more to come.

Hawkins lowered his ERA to 2.28.

On July 23, the Twins scored six runs on ten hits off Mark Buehrle.  In his next two games against them, he allowed one run on twelve hits in sixteen innings.  Buehrle was 19-12 in 2002 with an ERA of 3.58 and a WHIP of 1.24.  He made the all-star team but did not get any Cy Young votes.  At first that seemed odd--not that he did not win the award, but that he did even get token consideration.  It must be said, though, that the four pitchers who did get votes--Barry Zito, Pedro Martinez, Derek Lowe, and Jerrod Washburn--all had better seasons.

No player profile today.  There just wasn't anyone I felt like writing one for.  I thought about doing Willie Harris, but for whatever reason, I just couldn't make myself care about Willie Harris while I was writing this.  Maybe tomorrow.

Record:  The Twins were 75-53, in first place, leading Chicago by fifteen and a half games.