CHICAGO 2, MINNESOTA 1 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Tuesday, June 24.

Batting stars:  Denny Hocking was 2-for-2 with a double and a walk.  Corey Koskie was 2-for-4.

Pitching stars:  Rick Reed pitched seven innings, giving up two runs and six hits and two walks and striking out six.  J. C. Romero struck out two in a scoreless inning, giving up a walk.  LaTroy Hawkins struck out two in a scoreless inning, giving up two hits.

Opposition stars:  Esteban Loaiza pitched eight innings, giving up an unearned run on six hits and one walk and striking out six.  Carlos Lee was 2-for-4 with a double.

The game:  The White Sox put men on first and second with one out in the first, but a line drive double play took them out of the inning.  Brian Daubach led off the second with a double and scored on Lee's single to put Chicago ahead 1-0.

Neither team did much then until the sixth, when Miguel Olivo led off with a double.  He was still on second with two out, but Frank Thomas singled him home to make it 2-0 White Sox.

Loaiza pretty much stifled the Twins offense.  They did not put two men on in an inning until the eighth, when Bobby Kielty led off with a single and Hocking drew a one-out walk.  At that they might not have scored, but a forceout-plus-error brought Kielty home.  The Twins had the tying run on second with two out, but a ground out ended the inning.  They went down in order in the ninth.

WP:  Loaiza (11-2).  LP:  Reed (3-8).  S:  Billy Koch (11).

Notes:  Hocking was at second base in place of Luis Rivas.  Kielty was in right field, with Justin Morneau at DH.

Morneau was 0-for-4 and was batting .316.  Doug Mientkiewicz was 1-for-3 and was batting .306.  Koskie was batting .305.  Jacque Jones was 0-for-4 and dropped below .300 at .299.

Hocking had a five-game hitting streak over which he was 9-for-16.  He raised his average nearly a hundred points, from .167 to .265.

A. J. Pierzynski was on an 0-for-9 streak, dropping his average from .300 to .288.

Hawkins lowered his ERA to 1.96.

This was by far Loaiza's best season.  He went 21-9, 2.90, 1.11 WHIP and led the league in strikeouts.  He made the first of two all-star teams and finished second in Cy Young voting to Roy Halladay.  His next highest win total was 12, in 2005, and he only got his ERA below four one other time, also in 2012 (3.77).  I don't know what happened to him in 2003, or if it was just luck, but whatever it was, he couldn't do it again.

Record:  The Twins were 40-35, in second place in the American League Central, one percentage point behind Kansas City.