MINNESOTA 7, DETROIT 4 IN DETROIT
Date: Tuesday, September 17.
Batting stars: Jacque Jones was 4-for-4 with a home run (his twenty-seventh) and three RBIs. Luis Rivas was 4-for-4 with a triple. Corey Koskie was 2-for-4.
Pitching stars: Brad Radke pitched six innings, giving up three runs on eight hits and no walks with one strikeout. J. C. Romero pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit and striking out one. Eddie Guardado pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two hits.
Opposition stars: Hiram Bocachica was 3-for-5 with a home run (his eighth) and a stolen base (his third). Bobby Higginson was 2-for-4 with a double. Omar Infante was 2-for-5 with a double.
The game: Jones led off the game with a home run. Later in the inning, Cristian Guzman doubled, went to third on a passed ball, and scored on a ground out to give the Twins a 2-0 lead. In the fifth, Todd Sears doubled, Rivas singled, and the Twins got RBI singles from Jones and Koskie to make it 4-0. The Tigers got back into the game in the sixth. Bocachica led off with a single and stole second. Infante doubled him in to make it 4-1. Higginson followed with a single to cut the lead to 4-2. He went to third on a Carlos Pena doubled and scored on a ground out to narrow the margin to 4-3. The Twins got a couple of insurance runs in the seventh. Sears singled and scored on a Rivas triple. Jones followed with a single to give the Twins a 6-3 advantage. Bocachica homered in the seventh to make it 6-4, but the Twins got the run back in the eighth on Rivas' run-scoring single. Detroit threatened in the ninth, putting men on second and third with one out, but a popup and a fly ball ended the game.
WP: Radke (9-4). LP: Shane Loux (0-2). S: Guardado (42).
Notes: Hunter returned to the lineup and went 0-for-2. He was hit by a pitch in the sixth, however, and left the game. He would not return until September 20.
This was the major league debut for Todd Sears. A first baseman, he got a September call-up after a big year in Edmonton, when he hit .310/.388/.525 with twenty home runs and thirty-six doubles. He was with the Twins for about six weeks in 2003, filling in for an injured Doug Mientkiewicz, and batted .246/.324/.369 in 73 at-bats. Unfortunately for him, the Twins had another first baseman in their minor league system named Justin Morneau. He was traded to San Diego in September of 2003, and got eight at-bats with the Padres. He kept playing through 2007 but never made it back to the majors. His career AAA numbers were .298/.374/.471 in 503 games, leading one to think he could've hit in the majors if he'd been given the chance. He hit two home runs for the Twins, and I remember that one of them was a tremendous blast which, as I recall, hit the scoreboard or something. At last report, he was the owner and operations manager of Complete Game Baseball, a baseball instructional school in the Kansas City area.
A. J. Pierzynski was 1-for-4 and was batting .304.
Romero's ERA fell to 1.87.
Guardado's ERA fell to 2.97.
Record: The Twins were 83-63, in first place, leading Chicago by thirteen games.