NEW YORK 4, MINNESOTA 1 IN NEW YORK

Date:  Thursday, October 2.

Batting stars:  Shannon Stewart was 2-for-3 with a walk.  Torii Hunter was 2-for-4 with a home run.  Those were the only hits the Twins had.

Pitching stars:  Brad Radke pitched 6.1 innings, giving up two runs on five hits and two walks and striking out four.  Juan Rincon pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a walk.

Opposition stars:  Andy Pettitte struck out ten in seven innings, giving up one run on four hits and three walks.  Alfonso Soriano was 3-for-4 with a stolen base and two runs.  Jason Giambi was 2-for-4 with two RBIs.  Mariano Rivera pitched two perfect innings and struck out one.

The game:  Singles by Soriano, Derek Jeter, and Giambi loaded the bases for the Yankees with none out in the first.  All the Yankees could do, though, was get a sacrifice fly from Bernie Williams to take a 1-0 lead.  The Twins got a man to second with two out in the third and New York had a man on second with one out in the fourth, but the score remained 1-0.

Hunter led off the fifth with a home run to tie it 1-1.  An error and a single put men on first and third with two out, but the Twins could not take the lead.  The Yankees had men on first and second with two out in the fifth and the Twins had men on first and second with two out in the sixth, but the score remained tied.

But New York took control in the seventh.  Nick Johnson was hit by a pitch and was bunted to second.  Soriano delivered an RBI single to give the Yankees the lead.  Jeter then reached on an error, putting men on second and third, and Giambi hit a two-run single to make it 4-1 New York.  Rivera came in and the Twins could do nothing with him, so there is where the score ended.

WP:  Pettitte.  LP:  Radke.  S:  Rivera.

Notes:  Stewart was in left and Jones in right.  The Twins made no in-game lineup substitutions.

LaTroy Hawkins had a great year, but he couldn't get it done in this game.  He entered in the seventh with the score tied, a man on second, and one out.  He gave up the Soriano single, made the error on Jeter's grounder, and gave up the Giambi single.  J. C. Romero got the side out after that, but the game was gone.

Hunter and Stewart were batting .500 over the two games.  Corey Koskie was batting .250.  No other Twin was over .167.

Still, the Twins were even in the series, and were coming home for the next two games.  It seemed like they had a good chance to win the series.  At the risk of revealing a spoiler, it didn't quite work out that way.

Record:  The Twins were tied with the Yankees 1-1 in the best-of-five series.