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.

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.