TORONTO BLUE JAYS 3, MINNESOTA TWINS 1 IN TORONTO

Date:  Wednesday, August 1, 2001.

Batting star:  Doug Mienkiewicz was 2-for-4.  Jacque Jones was 2-for-4.

Pitching stars:  Kyle Lohse pitched seven innings, giving up three runs on five hits and a walk and striking out two.  Todd Jones pitched a perfect inning, striking out one.   

Opposition stars:  Brad Fullmer was 3-for-3 with a home run (his twelfth) and a double.  Carlos Delgado hit a home run, his twenty-ninth.  Roy Halladay pitched eight innings, giving up one run on six hits and a walk and striking out two.

The game: The Twins had men on first and second with one out in the first, thanks to singles by Jones and Mientkiewicz, but nothing came of it.  The scoring started in the second, when Delgado led off with a home run.  Fullmer doubled later in the inning, but was stranded at second.  Toronto scored again in the fourth when Shannon Stewart led off with a double, went to third on a ground out, and scored on a sacrifice fly, making the score 2-0.

Meanwhile, the Twins had only one hit in innings two through six.  They got on the board in the seventh, though.  Doug Mientkiewicz singled and Corey Koskie walked, putting men on first and second with none out.  A double play almost took them out of the inning, but David Ortiz delivered a double, cutting the lead to 2-1.

The Blue Jays got the run right back in the bottom of the seventh, when Brad Fullmer led off with a home run.  The Twins got the tying run up to bat in both the eighth and the ninth, but they did not score again, and Toronto won 3-1.

WP:  Roy Halladay (1-1).

LP:  Kyle Lohse (3-4).

S:  Billy Koch (22).

Notes:  Denny Hocking was at short in place of Cristian Guzman.  Chad Allen was in right field in place of Matt Lawton, who had been traded to the Mets a couple of days earlier for Rick Reed.

Doug Mientkiewicz was batting .329.  He would finish at .306.

Shannon Stewart went 1-for-4 in this game.  He would be traded to the Twins two years later and would play for them through 2005.

Todd Jones had been traded to the Twins a few days earlier for Mark Redman.  He would only stay through the end of 2001, leaving as a free agent.  He would play in the majors through 2008.

It was the rookie year for Kyle Lohse.  He had made his first start on June 22.  2001 was a struggle, as he went 4-7, 5.68.  He would do better, but would not have an ERA under four until 2008, when he was with St. Louis.

Roy Halladay was still in the process of establishing himself as a major league pitcher.  He’d had a full season in the majors in 1999 and done pretty well, but 2000 was a struggle for him and he was back in AAA for part of the season.  He came back to the majors about a month before this game.   The next year he would be an all-star, and the year after that would win the Cy Young Award.

Record:  Toronto was 50-58, in third place in the AL East, 15.5 games behind New York.  They would finish 80-82, in third place, 16 games behind New York.

The Twins were 60-47, in second place in the AL Central, 1.5 games behind Cleveland.  They would finish 85-77, in second place, 6 games behind Cleveland.

Random Record:  The Random Twins have lost five consecutive games and are 23-23 (.500).