MINNESOTA 5, CLEVELAND 0 IN CLEVELAND

Date:  Sunday, September 15.

Batting stars:  Cristian Guzman was 2-for-4 with a walk and a stolen base, his twelfth.  Michael Cuddyer was 1-for-3 with a double and a walk.

Pitching stars:  Kyle Lohse struck out eight in six shutout innings, giving up two hits and no walks.  Johan Santana struck out four in two shutout innings, giving up a walk.  Eddie Guardado pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit and striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Cliff Lee pitched 5.1 innings, giving up one run on two hits and four walks and striking out four.  Coco Crisp was 1-for-3 with a stolen base, his third.

The game:  The Twins put men on first and second with none out in the first inning but did not score.  There were no more threats until the sixth, when Guzman walked, was balked to second, stole third, and scored on a sacrifice fly to make it 1-0.  Denny Hocking delivered a two-run single in the seventh to give the Twins a 2-0 lead.  The Indians put men on first and second with two out in the eighth, but did not score.  Doug Mientkiewicz led off the ninth with a single and Cuddyer doubled.  A sacrifice fly scored one run and a wild pitch brought home another to round out the scoring.

WP:  Lohse (13-8).  LP:  Lee (0-1).  S:  None.

Notes:  Matthew LeCroy was the DH rather than David Ortiz.  He was 0-for-3 with an RBI.

Bobby Kielty remained in center field as Torii Hunter was again out of the lineup.  Kielty went 0-for-4.

Cuddyer was in right field.

Tom Prince was the catcher rather than A. J. Pierzynski.  He was 0-for-2 with a walk and an RBI.

Hocking was at second base rather than Luis Rivas.  Hocking was 1-for-4 with two RBIs.

It was Lohse's second-best game of the season by game scores, topped only by his complete game shutout of the White Sox on August 20.

This was the major league debut for Cliff Lee.  He would make another solid start six days later, against Kansas City.  He would make nine starts in 2003, then would go into the rotation permanently in 2004.  As you know, he would go on to become an excellent pitcher.  His best year was 2008, when he went 22-3, 2.54, 1.11 WHIP.  He led the league in wins, winning percentage, ERA, shutouts, FIP, and walks per nine innings and won the Cy Young Award.  He finished in the top seven in Cy Young voting five times and made the all-star team four times.  For his career, he was 143-91, 3.52, 1.20 WHIP.  He pitched in thirteen major league seasons.

Record:  The Twins were 87-63, in first place, leading the White Sox by thirteen games.  Their victory in this game clinched the division title.