SEATTLE 6, MINNESOTA 0 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Friday, May 30.

Batting star:  Cristian Guzman was 1-for-3 with a walk.

Pitching stars:  Kyle Lohse pitched eight innings, giving up three runs on eight hits and one walk and striking out three.

Opposition stars:  Joel Piniero struck out twelve in a complete game shutout, giving up four hits and two walks.  Randy Winn was 2-for-3 with a walk and two runs.  Ben Davis was 2-for-4.  Carlos Guillen was 2-for-5.  Mike Cameron was 1-for-1 with a two-run homer, his sixth.

The game:  The Mariners opened the scoring in the second.  Randy Winn walked, went to third on a Jeff Cirillo double, and scored on a Davis single, making it 1-0.  They added two more in the fourth.  Singles by Edgar Martinez, John Olerud, and Randy Winn plated one run and a sacrifice fly brought home another, increasing the lead to 3-0.  They got three more in the ninth to put the game out of reach.

And that was it.  The Twins threatened in the third when Lew Ford led off with a walk and went to second on Jacque Jones' one-out single.  A fly out and a strikeout ended the inning.  The threatened again in the ninth when Guzman and Corey Koskie singled with one out.  The next two batters struck out to end the game.

WP:  Piniero (5-4).  LP:  Lohse (4-4).  S:  None.

Notes:  Ford was in center field in place of Torii Hunter.  There were no in-game lineup substitutions.

Jacque Jones was 1-for-4 and was batting .337.  Ford was 0-for-2 to drop his average to .333.  Dustan Mohr was 1-for-3 and was batting .313.  Matthew LeCroy was 0-for-4, dropping his average below .300 for the first time since May 10.

Lohse's ERA went to 3.09.

This was one of two shutouts for Piniero in 2003.  The other would come on July 26 in Texas.  His twelve strikeouts were easily a season high--his next highest total was eight, on September 10.

This was the first time the Twins had lost two games in a row since April 26-27.

Record:  The Twins were 31-22, in first place in the American League Central, 3.5 games ahead of Kansas City.