MINNESOTA TWINS 6, OAKLAND ATHLETICS 0 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Friday, September 6, 2002.

Batting stars:  Corey Koskie was 3-for-3 with a home run (his eleventh), a double, and two RBIs.  Jacque Jones was 2-for-4 with a double and two runs.  A. J. Pierzynski was 2-for-4 with a double.

Pitching stars:  Brad Radke pitched a complete game shutout, giving up six hits and a walk and striking out five.  He threw 113 pitches.

Opposition stars:  Eric Chavez was 2-for-4 with a double.  Scott Hatteberg was 2-for-4 with a double.  Miguel Tejada was 2-for-4.

The game:  Singles by Scott Hatteberg and Eric Chavez and a walk to Jermaine Dye loaded the bases with two out in the first, but Oakland did not score.  It cost them, as doubles by Jacque Jones and Corey Koskie gave the Twins a run in the bottom of the first.  The Athletics missed another chance in the third, as a double by Hatteberg and a single by Miguel Tejada put men on first and third with one out, but again did not result in a run.  It cost them again, as Luis Rivas tripled and scored on a ground out to make it 2-0 Minnesota.

Starter Brad Radke settled in after that, retiring eight in a row and facing the minimum each inning until the ninth.  Corey Koskie homered leading off the sixth to make it 3-0.  In the seventh, A. J. Pierzynski hit a one-out double.  With two out, Jacque Jones delivered an RBI single and came around to score on a Cristian Guzman double.  The Twins added their final run in the ninth when Torii Hunter doubled, went to third on a ground out, and scored on a wild pitch.

WP:  Brad Radke (7-4).

LP:  Cory Lidle (8-10).

S:  None.

Notes:  Michael Cuddyer was in right field.  Dustan Mohr played the most games there with 94, followed by Bobby Kielty with 50.

Greg Myers caught the last part of the game for Oakland.  He had played for the Twins from 1996-1997.

Luis Rivas hit four triples in 2002.  He had twenty-nine in his career, with a high of nine in 2003.  That’s almost as many triples as home runs in his career, as he hit thirty-four homers with a career high of ten in 2004.

This was David Ortiz’ last year as a Twin.  People sometimes say he was a bust in Minnesota, but he really wasn’t.  For his career with the Twins, he hit .266/.348/.461, for an OPS of .806.  In his last season, at age twenty-six, he batted .272/.339/.500, for an OPS of .839.  While I don’t blame the Twins for not realizing what he would become–nobody saw that coming–I do blame them for simply releasing a still-young player who routinely posted an OPS of over. 800.

It is extremely unlikely, today, that a pitcher would be allowed to pitch a complete game with a six-run lead, regardless of pitch count.  Even more so, as the Twins pretty much had the division clinched at this point.  At that time, 113 pitches wasn’t considered all that extreme, although even then it was a little unusual.  Today, though, a pitcher who threw 113 pitches in a game would be treated like Iron Man McGinnity.

Ray Durham was the DH for Oakland in this game.  Normally a second baseman, he was always kind of a favorite of mine for no particular reason I can remember.  He had a long career, starting in 1995 with the White Sox and ending in 2008 in Milwaukee.  He batted .277/.352/.436 with 192 home runs, solid numbers for a second baseman.  He made two all-star teams in his fourteen-year career.  Not a Hall of Famer or anything, but a very respectable career.

It doesn’t seem to this old man like 2002 should be over twenty years ago.

Record:  Oakland was 88-52, in first place in the AL West, two games ahead of Anaheim.  They would finish 103-59, in first place, four games ahead of Anaheim.

The Twins were 82-59, in first place in the AL Central, fourteen games ahead of Chicago.  They would finish 94-67, in first place, 13.5 games ahead of Chicago.

Random Record:  The Random Twins are 57-53 (.518).