MINNESOTA 6, CHICAGO 1 IN CHICAGO

Date:  Friday, April 25.

Batting stars:  Bobby Kielty was 3-for-4 with a two-run homer (his fourth), a walk, and two runs.  Matthew LeCroy was 2-for-3 with a walk and two RBIs.

Pitching stars:  Joe Mays pitched seven innings, giving up one run on four hits and no walks and striking out three.  LaTroy Hawkins pitched a perfect inning.  J. C. Romero pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Mark Buehrle pitched seven innings, giving up three runs on five hits and two walks and striking out four.  Frank Thomas was 1-for-3 with a home run, his fourth.

The game:  The Twins jumped on Buehrle early, scoring three times in the first inning.  Dustan Mohr led off the game with a double and went to third on a ground out.  Kielty walked and Corey Koskie hit a sacrifice fly to get the Twins on the board.  Torii Hunter had an RBI triple to make it 2-0 and scored on LeCroy's single to make it 3-0.

That remained the score until the seventh, as neither team even threatened in innings two through six.  In fact, the White Sox did not get a baserunner until the fourth, when Thomas was hit by a pitch, and did not get a hit until the sixth, when Sandy Alomar singled.

In the seventh, however, Thomas homered to get Chicago on the board at 3-1.  Magglio Ordonez and Paul Konerko followed with singles, putting the tying run on base.  But Armando Rios hit into a double play and Joe Crede popped up to end the inning.

The Twins got the run back with interest in the eighth.  With one out, Cristian Guzman was hit by a pitch and Kielty followed with a two-run homer.  With two out Hunter reached on an error and Doug Mientkiewicz and LeCroy singled, bringing home another run to make the score 6-1.  The White Sox got only one baserunner after that.

WP:  Mays (3-2).  LP:  Buehrle (2-3).  S:  None.

Notes:  Mohr led off and was in left field in place of Jacque Jones.  Kielty was in right field in place of Michael Cuddyer, who had started most of the games in right field to this point.

Kielty raised his average to .370.  Mohr was 1-for-5 and raised his average to .135.

Hawkins maintained his ERA of zero.

By game scores, this was Mays' best game of the season, at 68.  He'd had a score of 63 on April 2.  He would have only three more starts about fifty and only one above sixty.

The White Sox used two players who would have connections to the Twins:  D'Angelo Jimenez and Crede.

The win snapped a six-game losing streak for the Twins.  So far this season the Twins have won three, lost six, won six, lost six, and now won one.  As we've pointed out, each of the seven series the Twins have played so far has been a sweep.  Having won the first game of this series, the were obviously hoping for another sweep.

Record:  The Twins were 10-12, in third place in the American League Central, seven games behind Kansas City.