2002 Rewind: Game One Hundred Fifty-four

CHICAGO 14, MINNESOTA 4 IN CHICAGO

Date:  Saturday, September 21.

Batting stars:  Corey Koskie was 2-for-3 with two home runs, his thirteenth and fourteenth.  David Ortiz was 2-for-3 with a home run, his nineteenth.  Michael Restovich hit a pinch-hit home run, his first.

Pitching star:  Mike Jackson pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Magglio Ordonez was 3-for-4 with two home runs, his thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth, scoring three times and driving in four.  Aaron Rowand was 3-for-4.  Carlos Lee was 2-for-4 with a grand slam, his twenty-sixth home run.

The game:  Ordonez hit a two-run homer in the first to give the White Sox a 2-0 lead.  Ortiz homered in the second to cut the lead to 2-1.  Chicago took the game over in the third.  They started the season with back-to-back doubles by D'Angelo Jimenez and Jose Valentin, followed by back-to-back singles by Lee and Ordonez.  The next two batters were retired, but Joe Crede doubled and Rowand singled, making the score 6-1.  Koskie led off the fourth with a homer to make it 6-2, but Ordonez homered leading off the fifth to make it a five-run game again at 7-2.  Koskie hit another homer leading off the sixth, but Valentin hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the sixth to increase the lead to 9-3.  The White Sox scored five more in the seventh, capped by the Lee grand slam.  Restovich hit a pinch-hit home run with one out in the ninth to round out the scoring.

WP:  Jon Rauch (2-1).  LP:  Brad Radke (9-5).  S:  None.

Notes:  Jacque Jones was again out of the lineup, and would not return until September 26.  Dustan Mohr led off and played left field, going 0-for-4.

It was the first major league home run by Restovich.  It was one of three he hit as a Twin and one of six he hit for his career.  It came off Kelly Wunsch.  I suspect he probably remembers it pretty well, even though all it did was make the score 14-4.

Radke pitched just three innings, allowing six runs on nine hits and no walks and striking out three.  His game score was twenty, his lowest of the season.

Jackson lowered his ERA to 2.89.

Rauch was in his rookie season.  It was his fifth major league start.  I don't know if he had the neck tat then, but I'm confident that he was tall.

The Twins had been outscored 24-6 in their last two games.

Record:  The Twins were 89-65, in first place, leading Chicago by 11.5 games.