SAN FRANCISCO 4, MINNESOTA 3 IN SAN FRANCISCO
Date: Wednesday, June 4.
Batting star: Torii Hunter was 2-for-3 with two doubles and a walk.
Pitching stars: Brad Radke pitched seven innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk and striking out two. LaTroy Hawkins pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and a walk and striking out one.
Opposition stars: Ray Durham was 2-for-3 with a double and two walks. Barry Bonds was 2-for-4 with a triple, a walk, and two RBIs. Jerome Williams pitched 6.2 innings, giving up three runs on five hits and three walks and striking out six.
The game: The Twins took the lead in the first on doubles by Jacque Jones and Hunter. They increased their lead in the third. With one out, Cristian Guzman doubled and scored on Corey Koskie's single. Hunter doubled to put men on second and third and a ground out scored one, making it 3-0 Twins.
The Giants got on the board in the fourth when Durham walked and scored on Bonds' triple. Each team put a man into scoring position in the sixth, but neither could take advantage of it, so it stayed 3-1 through seven.
In the eighth Jose Cruz singled and scored from first on a Marquis Grissom double. That knocked Radke out of the box and brought J. C. Romero into the game. Durham singled to put men on the corners and Hawkins came in. Rich Aurilia hit a ground-rule double, tying it 3-3. An intentional walk loaded the bases with none out, but Hawkins retired the next three men to leave the score tied.
Juan Rincon came in to pitch the ninth. Jose Cruz walked with one out and went to second on a wild pitch. With two out Durham was intentionally walked and Aurilia was accidentally walked, loading the bases. Walking someone to face Barry Bonds was not usually a good idea, and that proved to be true in this case. Bonds singled to end the game.
WP: Tim Worrell (2-2). LP: Rincon (1-2). S: None.
Notes: Matthew LeCroy pinch-hit for Luis Rivas in the ninth. Denny Hocking came in to play second base.
Everyone reading this knows about Radke's first-inning struggles, but it was not the case in this game. He only allowed one hit through three innings, a single by Marvin Benard with one out in the third. He got through seven innings allowing just one run on four hits before apparently tiring in the eighth. He threw 88 pitches. Still, his ERA was 5.53 after this game.
Hawkins lowered his ERA to 1.23. Rincon gave up a run in two-thirds of an inning to make his ERA 2.55.
There were seven doubles in the game. The Twins had four and the Giants three.
Some guy named Joe Nathan came in for San Francisco to retire the only batter he faced in the seventh. I'm not sure whatever happened to him after 2003.
Record: The Twins were 32-25, in first place in the American League Central, 3.5 games ahead of Kansas City.