MINNESOTA 5, MILWAUKEE 4 IN MINNESOTA (10 INNINGS)
Date: Sunday, June 29.
Batting stars: Luis Rivas was 3-for-5 with a stolen base, his sixth. Bobby Kielty was 2-for-4 with two doubles. Matthew LeCroy was 2-for-4 with a double. Cristian Guzman was 2-for-5 with a walk. Lew Ford was 2-for-5 with a walk.
Pitching stars: Johan Santana struck out four in 2.1 scoreless innings, giving up a hit and a walk. LaTroy Hawkins pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.
Opposition stars: Scott Podsednik with a walk and a stolen base, his sixteenth. Brady Clark was 2-for-2 with a stolen base, his fourth. Keith Ginter was 2-for-5 with a double. Matt Ford pitched three innings, giving up one run on four hits and three walks and striking out two. Danny Kolb pitched three innings, giving up one run on four hits and a walk and striking out three.
The game: The Twins had the bases loaded in the first inning but did not score. The Brewers loaded the bases in the third and did score. Keith Osik singled, Royce Clayton walked, Podsednik singled, and Ginter delivered an RBI single. A ground out scored another run to make it 2-0 Milwaukee. The Twins got one back in the third when Kielty hit a two-out double and scored on Torii Hunter's single.
The Brewers struck again in the fifth. Clayton tripled with one out and scored on a Podsednik single. Ginter then hit an RBI double and a sacrifice fly brought home the second run of the inning, making the score 4-1. The Twins again got one back in the sixth when Doug Mientkiewicz walked, LeCroy singled, and Ford hit an RBI single.
It stayed 4-2 until the ninth. The Twins had a chance in the eighth, but bad baserunning took them out of the inning. They had men on first and second with none out, but Mientkiewicz got picked off second and Jacque Jones was thrown out at the plate trying to score from first on LeCroy's one-out double. They again had men on first and second in the ninth, this time with one out, but this time they came through. Justin Morneau had an RBI single, a hit batsman loaded the bases, and a sacrifice fly tied it at four and sent the game to an extra inning.
In the tenth Rivas singled with one out and stole second. With two down, Guzman singled to bring home the tying run. The play-by-play says he singled to first base--perhaps the ball bounced away from the first baseman. At any rate, it was enough to bring the Twins the victory.
WP: Hawkins (5-2). LP: Mike DeJean (2-5). S: None.
Notes: Matthew LeCroy was again behind the plate in place of A. J. Pierzynski. Pierzynski would be back in the lineup the next day. It's interesting that, with Pierzynski missing a couple of days, Ron Gardenhire went with the offense of LeCroy rather than the defense of Tom Prince. Ford was in left in place of Jones. Kielty was the DH.
Jones pinch-hit for Dustan Mohr in the eighth and went to left field, with Mohr going to right. Morneau pinch-hit for Kielty in the ninth. Denny Hocking then pinch-ran for Morneau. Prince went behind the plate in the tenth in place of LeCroy for no obvious reason. Perhaps LeCroy was injured somehow or was not feeling well.
Ford was batting .359. Corey Koskie was 0-for-5 and was batting .308. Mientkiewicz was 0-for-2 and was batting .304.
Rick Reed started for the Twins and pitched six innings, giving up four runs on six hits and three walks and striking out two.
Santana lowered his ERA to 2.41. Hawkins lowered his ERA to 1.79.
This was Matt Ford's first major league start. It was his rookie season. He had been in the bullpen for twenty-one games and had done well: 2.15 ERA, 1.13 WHIP in 29.1 innings. They then moved him to the rotation for four starts, where he did not do well: 0-3, 8.79, 2.38 WHIP. It looks like he then was injured, or maybe was injured during one of those four starts, because he did not pitch any more in 2003. He never reached the majors again. He bounced around the minors and independent ball for several more seasons, continuing to play through 2008. He was with the Twins in AAA in 2006 and did not do very well. I'm not saying the Brewers mishandled him, and maybe he would've been injured anyway. But we'll never know what would've happened if they'd just left him in the bullpen where he'd been successful.
This was the first time the Twins had won two games in a row since June 11-13.
Record: The Twins were 43-37, tied for first with Kansas City in the American League Central.