BOSTON 5, MINNESOTA 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Saturday, August 17.

Batting stars:  A. J. Pierzynski was 2-for-4 with a double.  David Ortiz was 1-for-3 with a double and a walk.  Dustan Mohr was 1-for-3 with a double and a walk.

Pitching stars:  Johan Santana struck out six in five innings, giving up three runs (two earned) on five hits and three walks.  Juan Rincon pitched two shutout innings, giving up one hit and striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Rickey Henderson was 3-for-4 with a home run (his fifth), a double, and a walk.  Tim Wakefield pitched six innings, giving up one run on four hits and three walks and striking out four.  Alan Embree retired all six men he faced, striking out five.

The game:  Henderson led off the game with a walk and later scored on a wild pitch, giving the Red Sox a 1-0 lead.  Three singles and a ground out made it 2-0 in the second.  Another run scored on an error in the fifth to make it 3-0.  The Twins got on the board in the seventh, but missed a chance for a big inning.  Ortiz led off with a double and went to third on a Torii Hunter single.  Hunter stole second and Doug Mientkiewicz walked, loading the bases with none out.  Mohr walked to cut the lead to 3-1 and the bases were still loaded with none out.  But Alan Embree came in to strike out Pierzynski, Luis Rivas, and Bobby Kielty to strand all three runners.  Boston scored one in the eighth on a sacrifice fly and Henderson homered in the ninth to make the score 5-1.  The Twins got one more in the ninth when Mohr doubled with two out and scored on a Pierzynski single, but Rivas struck out to end the game.

WP:  Wakefield (7-4).  LP:  Santana (6-5).  S:  None.

Notes:  Hunter was 1-for-4 and was batting .304.

Pierzynski raised his average to .304.

This was Rincon's first appearance with the Twins since July 18.

Henderson was near the end of his Hall of Fame career.  He played in just 72 games for the Red Sox in 2002, getting 179 at-bats.  He batted just .226, but still drew a ton of walks--his OBP was .369.  He was forty-three in 2002.  The next year, 2003, would be his last.  With the Dodgers he batted just .208, but still had an OBP of .321.

This was the only appearance Alan Embree made against the Twins in 2002.  Yet, he only struck out more than five batters against three teams.  He struck out six of thirteen Mariners, six of nineteen Blue Jays, and eleven of twenty-four Yankees.  For the season, he struck out 81 batters in 62 innings, a rate of 11.8 per nine innings.  His next highest strikeout rate was 9.8 in 2001, when he struck out 59 in 54 innings.

There will be no player profile today.  Nobody really piqued my interest, and there's nothing I could tell you about somebody like Rickey Henderson that you don't already know anyway.

Record:  The Twins were 72-52, in first place, leading Chicago by thirteen and a half games.

MINNESOTA 5, BOSTON 0 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Friday, August 16.

Batting stars:  Doug Mientkiewicz was 2-for-3.  David Ortiz was 1-for-3 with a home run (his fifteenth) and a walk.  Jacque Jones was 1-for-4 with a home run, his nineteenth.

Pitching star:  Joe Mays pitched a complete game shutout, giving up two hits and two walks and striking out six.

Opposition stars:  Carlos Baerga was 1-for-1.  Johnny Damon was 1-for-4 with a double.  Pedro Martinez struck out ten in a complete game, giving up five runs (three earned) on eight hits and a walk.

The game:  There was no score, and no threat of a score, until the fifth.  With one out, Torii Hunter and Mientkiewicz hit consecutive singles and Mohr grounded out to bring Hunter home with the game's first run.  The Twins broke it open in the seventh.  Ortiz hit a one-out home run, followed by an error and consecutive singles by Mientkiewicz, Mohr, and A. J. Pierzynski to make the score 4-0.  Jones led off the bottom of the eighth with a home run to close out the scoring.  The Red Sox did not get a hit until Damon's two-out double in the sixth.

WP:  Mays (2-4).  LP:  Martinez (16-3).  S:  None.

Notes:  This was easily Mays' best game of the season.  He had a game score of 87--his next highest was 67 in a game in September.  It got his ERA below six for the first time all season, at 5.92.

This was one of two complete games for Martinez.  Oddly, both were losses.  The other was a 2-1 loss to Atlanta in June.  Only once all season did he give up more than the five runs he gave up here--in the first game of the season he allowed eight runs (seven earned) in just three innings.

Infielder Carlos Baerga peaked early, but he hung around for a long time afterward.  He signed with San Diego as a free agent in late 1985, but before he got to the majors he was traded in 1989 to Cleveland along with Sandy Alomar in a deal for Joe Carter.  He came up to the Indians in 1990 and became a regular in 1991.  He became a star in 1992, posting the first of four seasons with an average of over .300 and an OPS of over .800.  He was an all-star in three of those seasons, with no apparent reason why he did not make the team in 1994.  He was twenty-six in the 1995 season and appeared destined for many more star years.  Instead, he went backward.  He had a sub-par 1996 and was traded to the Mets at the July deadline.  He stayed with the Mets through 1998, but simply wasn't the same player.  His batting average was decent--.267 as a Met--but he had never drawn many walks and he stopped hitting for power.  After averaging nearly twenty homers a season with Cleveland, he hit in single digits each year for the Mets.  1998 was his last year as a regular, but he hung around as a reserve for several more seasons.  He was with San Diego and Cleveland in 1999, missed the 2000 season, played in Korea and in the Atlantic League in 2001, was with Boston in 2002, with Arizona in 2003-2004, and finished his major league career with Washington in 2005.  He actually was pretty good with Arizona in 2003, batting .343/.396/.464 in 207 at-bats.  For his career, he batted .291/.332/.423 in fourteen seasons.  At last report, Carlos Baerga was an assistant baseball coach with the University of Northwestern Ohio in Lima.

Record:  The Twins were 72-51, in first place, leading Chicago by thirteen and a half games.

BALTIMORE 3, MINNESOTA 1 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Thursday, August 15.

Batting stars:  Cristian Guzman was 2-for-4.  Luis Rivas was 1-for-3 with a triple and a walk.

Pitching stars:  Kyle Lohse pitched seven innings, giving up two runs on four hits and two walks and striking out four.  J. C. Romero pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit and striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Jason Johnson pitched seven innings, giving up one run on six hits and a walk and striking out five.  Chris Richard was 2-for-3 with a double and a walk.  Chris Singleton was 2-for-4 with a home run (his seventh) and a double.

The game:  The second batter of the game, Singleton, homered to give the Orioles a 1-0 lead.  It stayed 1-0 until the fifth, when Hunter led off with a double and scored on a Dustan Mohr single.  The Twins put men on first and second with none out in the sixth but they never advanced.  Melvin Mora led off the eighth with a home run to give Baltimore a 2-1 lead.  Rivas hit a one-out triple in the bottom of the eighth, but again never advanced.  The Orioles led off the ninth with doubles by Jeff Conine and Richard to make it 3-1.  The Twins went down in order in the ninth.

WP:  Johnson (4-9).  LP:  Lohse (10-7).  S:  Jorge Julio (25).

Notes:  Rivas was the leadoff batter, as Jacque Jones was out of the lineup.  Mohr played left with Bobby Kielty in right.

Tom Prince was the catcher, as A. J. Pierzynski was out of the lineup.  He went 1-for-3.

Mike Jackson made his first appearance since July 22, pitching the ninth inning.  He went one inning, giving up one run on two hits.

Jason Johnson is another player who had a longer career than it would seem like he should have.  Not that he was always terrible, but it would be hard to point to many seasons when he was actually good, either.  For the most part, he seemed to pitch just well enough to stay in the rotation.  He was signed by Pittsburgh as a free agent in 1992 and suffered a near-fatal car accident in 1996.  He wasn’t breathing when found by first responders, but was revived and later found to have a fractured skull, clavicle, and mandible.  Despite that, he came back to make his major league debut late in 1997, making three relief appearances.  He was then chosen by Tampa Bay in the expansion draft and was with the big club for the first half of the season, going 2-5, 5.70 in thirteen starts.  He was traded to Baltimore just before the 1999 season, came up to the big leagues in late May, and was in the Orioles rotation the rest of the season, going 8-7. 5.46.  He was with Baltimore for most of 2000, both starting and relieving, and had the worst season of his career:  1-10, 7.02.  He was twenty-six that season, and one would think he was just about out of chances.  He made the Orioles' starting rotation in 2001, however, and for the next three years was a decent starter for them, going 25-36 but with an ERA of 4.25.  That's not exactly an all-star, but it'll keep you in the rotation.  A free agent after the 2003 season, he signed with Detroit and was in their rotation for two years, going 16-28, 4.83.  He pretty much fell off a cliff after that, posting a 6.35 ERA with three teams in 2006.  He went to Japan in 2007 but came back to the United States in 2008, appearing in sixteen games with the Dodgers.  That was his last big league time, but he was in AAA with the Yankees in 2009 and played in the Atlantic League in 2011 and 2013.  For his career, he was 56-100, 4.99.  He appeared in 255 games and made 221 starts.  A diabetic, he was the first major league player to get permission to wear an insulin pump on the field.  At last report, Jason Johnson was living in the Tampa area and was a spokesman and fundraiser for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Record:  The Twins had lost eight out of ten.  They were 71-51, in first place, leading Chicago by twelve and a half games.

BALTIMORE 6, MINNESOTA 5 IN MINNESOTA (14 INNINGS)

Date:  Wednesday, August 14.

Batting stars:  Jacque Jones was 3-for-5 with two doubles and three runs.  David Ortiz was 2-for-4 with a double.  Torii Hunter was 2-for-7 with a stolen base, his nineteenth.

Pitching stars:  Brad Radke pitched six innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk and striking out three.  Bob Wells pitched two shutout innings, giving up a walk.  LaTroy Hawkins pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Melvin Mora was 3-for-5 with a triple, a double, and a walk.  Tony Batista was 2-for-5 with two doubles and a walk.  Rick Bauer pitched four shutout innings, giving up three hits.

The game:  Mora led off the game with a triple and scored on a sacrifice fly to give the Orioles a 1-0 lead.  The Twins tied it in the bottom of the first when Jones doubled and scored on Hunter's single.  The Twins took a 3-1 lead in the second when Luis Rivas hit an RBI triple and scored on Jones' single.  Mora struck again in the third, getting an RBI single to cut the Twins lead to 3-2.  In the fifth, Jones and Ortiz each doubled to put the Twins back up by two at 4-2.  Mora and Batista each doubled in the sixth to make it 4-3.  Eddie Guardado came in to pitch the ninth and gave up doubles to the first two batters he faced, Batista and Jay Gibbons, to tie the score 4-4.  Gibbons went to third on a fly out and scored on a ground out to give the Baltimore a 5-4 advantage.  The Twins tied it in the ninth on an error and a Corey Koskie RBI single.  The Twins would not get a man past first after that.  With two out in the top of the fourteenth, Geronimo Gil hit a home run, his ninth of the season and one of nineteen in his career, to win the game for the Orioles.

WP:  Bauer (6-4).  LP:  Tony Fiore (9-3).  S:  None.

Notes:  Michael Cuddyer started the game in right field, going 0-for-2 with a walk.  Bobby Kielty pinch-hit for him in the eighth.

Hunter was now batting .305.

A. J. Pierzynski was 0-for-4 to make his average .302.

Hawkins lowered his ERA to 2.21.

J. C Romero pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two walks.  His ERA was now 1.67.

It was Guardado's first blown save since July 12.

Fiore pitched well other than the home run.  He went three innings, giving up two hits and a walk and striking out one.

Rick Bauer was a fifth-round draft choice of the Orioles in 1997.  He was a starting pitcher throughout his minor league career and made six starts as a September call-up in 2001, but made only four more starts the rest of his career, presumably of the emergency variety.  He was nothing special in the six starts, but wasn't bad either, posting an ERA of 4.64 with a WHIP of 1.33.  Still, the Orioles clearly felt he was more valuable to them in the bullpen.  That isn't all that clear from the numbers, as he went 8-8, 1 save, 4.57 in 119 appearances from 2002-2005.  All but the 2002 season included time in AAA where, oddly enough, they had him starting.  The Orioles gave up on him in 2005, releasing him mid-way through the season.  He then got a scenic tour, spending 2006 with Texas (where he had the best year of his career, 3-1, 3.55 in 71 innings), 2007 in AAA with Philadelphia and the Dodgers, 2008 in the minors with Cleveland and Toronto (making four appearances in the majors with the Indians), 2009 pitching in Korea and the Atlantic League, 2010 under contract with Colorado for three days and then back to the Atlantic League, out of baseball in 2011, and in the North American Baseball League in 2012.  His major league numbers for all that are 11-14, 4.51, 3 saves, 1.40 WHIP.  He appeared in 187 games, starting ten of them, and pitched 317 innings over parts of seven seasons.  At last report, Rick Bauer was a pitching instructor for Area 615, a baseball training facility in Franklin, Tennessee.

Record:  The Twins were 71-50, in first place, leading Chicago by thirteen games.

BOSTON 3, MINNESOTA 1 IN BOSTON

Date:  Sunday, August 11.

Batting stars:  Cristian Guzman was 1-for-4 with a double.  Dustan Mohr was 1-for-3.  Luis Rivas was 1-for-3.

Pitching stars:  Johan Santana struck out seven in 5.1 innings, giving up two runs on three hits and three walks.  Bob Wells pitched 1.2 scoreless innings, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Tim Wakefield pitched eight innings, giving up one run on four hits and no walks and striking out seven.  Lou Merloni was 1-for-2 with a double and a walk.  Nomar Garciaparra was 1-for-3 with a double and a walk.

The game:  It was scoreless until the sixth.  Merloni led off with a walk, went to second, and scored on a Johnny Damon double.  A walk and a single loaded the bases with one out and Shea Hillenbrand hit a sacrifice fly to put Boston up 2-0.  In the seventh, Guzman led off with a double and Torii Hunter followed with an RBI single, cutting the lead to 2-1, but the Twins could do no more.  The Red Sox added an insurance run in the eighth when Damon walked and scored on Garciaparra's double.  The Twins did not get a baserunner after Hunter's RBI single in the seventh.

WP:  Wakefield (6-4).  LP:  Johan Santana (6-4).  S:  Ugueth Urbina (28).

Notes:  Denny Hocking was at third base, replacing Corey Koskie.  He was 0-for-3.

Santana was pulled in the sixth, having given up one run and leaving the bases loaded with one out, just before the Hillenbrand sacrifice fly.  He threw 87 pitches.

Wells was working on a string of ten scoreless innings since coming back from injury, giving up five hits and three walks.  He lowered his ERA from 7.36 to 5.65.

Ugueth Urbina had been a closer for Montreal for several years before coming to Boston.  I'd forgotten that he came up as a starter and was fairly decent at it, going 7-5, 4.14 in seventeen starts for the Expos in 1996 as a twenty-two year old.  He might have developed into a pretty good starter, but we'll never know, because Montreal made him their closer in 1997.  It's hard to argue that it was the wrong decision, as he performed well in that role.  His best year with the Expos was 1998, when he went 6-3, 1.30, 34 saves, with a WHIP of 1.01.  He made his first all-star team that year and led the league in saves in 1999, with 41.  He was not doing as well in 2001, and Montreal had a bad team, so they traded him to the Red Sox at the July trade deadline.  He did well for them and made his second all-star team in 2002, going 1-6, 3.00, 40 saves, 1.07 WHIP.  He then started bouncing around.  He signed with Texas for 2003 but was traded to Florida in mid-July, helping them win the championship.  He signed with Detroit for 2004 but was traded to Philadelphia in June.  Then, various off-field things happened.  His mother was kidnapped in Venezuela in 2004, finally released unharmed several months later.  Urbina was arrested in November of 2005 and charged with attempted murder.  He continues to maintain his innocence, but he served seven years in prison, released in December 2012.  He pitched in the Venezuelan Winter League in 2-2013-2014.  Two of his sons, Ugueth Jr and Jose, pitched in the minor leagues.  He is the only major league player to have the initials UU.  For his career, he was 44-49, 3.45, 237 saves, 1.21 WHIP.  He was only thirty-one when his major league career ended, so he clearly would've pitched longer had circumstances been different.  No information about what Ugueth Urbina is doing now was readily available.

Record:  The Twins were 70-49, in first place, leading Chicago by thirteen games.  The Twins had lost six of their last seven.

BOSTON 2, MINNESOTA 0 IN BOSTON

Date:  Saturday, August 10.

Batting stars:  Cristian Guzman was 1-for-4 with a double.  Doug Mientkiewicz was 1-for-3.  A. J. Pierzynski was 1-for-3.

Pitching stars:  Joe Mays pitched seven innings, giving up two runs on seven hits and one walk and striking out four.  Tony Fiore pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two hits and striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Pedro Martinez struck out eight in eight shutout innings, giving up four hits and no walks.  Nomar Garciaparra was 2-for-4.  Ugueth Urbina struck out the side in his only inning.

The game:  The Red Sox got both of their runs in the second.  Cliff Floyd led off the inning with a double and scored on Shea Hillenbrand's double.  The next two batters went out, but Rey Sanchez singled to make it 2-0.  The Twins' biggest threats came in the first, when Guzman hit a one-out double, and the fifth, when Mientkiewicz hit a one-out single and went to second on Pierzynski's two-out single.  The last ten Twins were retired.

WP:  Martinez (16-2).  LP:  Mays (1-4).  S:  Urbina (27).

Notes:  Denny Hocking played second base, replacing Luis Rivas.  He went 0-for-3,

Torii Hunter was 0-for-4 to drop his average to .307.

Bobby Kielty was 0-for-3 to drop his average to .301.

Pierzynski was now batting .312.

What a mismatch this must have looked like in the newspaper.  "Minnesota (Mays, 1-3, 8.07) v. Boston (Martinez, 15-2, 2.25).  But give Joe Mays credit, he kept the Twins in the game and pitched quite well.  He actually wasn't terrible the rest of the season (he was in a couple of games, but not for the most part).  It was a bad season overall, though, and as we know, future seasons would only get worse.

The Twins managed only four hits off Pedro Martinez.  Nothing to be ashamed of--nobody was hitting him back then.  He went 20-4, 2.26, 2.24 FIP, 0.92 WHIP, 239 strikeouts in 199.1 innings.  He finished second to Barry Zito in Cy Young voting, and while Zito had a fine year Martinez beat him in ERA (by half a run), ERA+, WHIP, strikeouts (despite pitching thirty fewer innings), and just about every other category except wins (23 for Zito).  It was the fifth time he had finished in the top two, and while he would never do it again he would finish third in 2003 and fourth in 2004.  He got MVP votes six times, finishing second (to Ivan Rodriguez) in 1999.  He also led the league in ERA five times and made eight all-star teams.  A tremendous pitcher.

Record:  The Twins were 70-48, in first place, leading Chicago by fourteen games.

MINNESOTA 5, BOSTON 4 IN BOSTON

Date:  Friday, August 9.

Batting stars:  Cristian Guzman was 3-for-5.  Torii Hunter was 2-for-4 with a double and a stolen base, his eighteenth.  Luis Rivas was 2-for-5.

Pitching stars:  J. C. Romero pitched 2.2 scoreless innings, giving up one hit.  Eddie Guardado struck out two in a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Nomar Garciaparra was 3-for-4 with a home run, his twentieth.  Brian Daubach was 2-for-3 with a triple.  Cliff Floyd was 2-for-4 with a double.

The game:  It was close all the way.  Garciaparra homered in the first to give Boston a 1-0 lead.  The Twins tied it in the second when Hunter doubled, took third on a ground out, and scored on a Doug Mientkiewicz sacrifice fly.  The Red Sox regained the lead in the third when Daubach tripled and scored on a ground out.  The Twins tied it again in the fourth when Hunter singled, went to third on a stolen base-plus-error, and scored on a Mientkiewicz single.  The Twins took their first lead in the fifth, as Rivas doubled and Guzman singled to put men on first and third with one out.  Corey Koskie singled in one run and another scored on a ground out, putting the Twins up 4-2.  The Red Sox opened the sixth with two walks and a wild pitch put men on second and third.  RBI singles by Garciaparra and Manny Ramirez then tied the game 4-4.  The Twins led off the seventh with consecutive singles by Rivas, Guzman, and Koskie to give the Twins a 5-4 lead.  A double play took them out of the inning, but it was enough, as the Red Sox managed only two singles the rest of the game.

WP:  Romero (8-1).  LP:  Frank Castillo (5-12).  S:  Guardado (34).

Notes:  Jacque Jones was not in the lineup, although he entered in the eighth inning for defense.  Michael Cuddyer was in right, with Dustan Mohr moving to left.  Luis Rivas went into the leadoff spot.  Cuddyer wetn 0-for-3 with a walk.

Tom Prince was the catcher in place of A. J. Pierzynski, going 0-for-4.

Hunter brought his average back up to .309.

Twins starter Kyle Lohse pitched five innings, giving up four runs on five hits and two walks and striking out one.

LaTroy Hawkins pitched a third of an inning and dropped his ERA 2.14.

Romero's ERA fell to 1.70.

Guardado's ERA was now 2.42.

Boston's starter was Casey Fossum.  He pitched 5.2 innings, giving up four runs on eight hits and a walk and striking out five.

People seem to have forgotten what a great player Nomar Garciaparra was.  He peaked early, which may be some of it--after batting .357 in 1999 and .372 in 2000, when he was 25 and 26, respectively, he never batted higher than .310 the rest of his career.  He had the bad luck to have his best years when Alex Rodriguez was just entering his prime, and as Rodriguez increased and Garciaparra decreased he lost some of his luster.  Still, he batted .313/.361/.521 over a fourteen-year career, made six all-star teams, was rookie of the year, and finished in the top ten in MVP voting four times.  That's a pretty darn good career.

Frank Castillo is another guy who turned a few good years into a long career.  He came up to the Cubs at mid-season in 1991 and turned in respectable numbers for a twenty-two year old:  5-6, 4.35, 1.25 WHIP.  He followed that up by going 10-11, 3.46, 1.18 WHIP in 1992.  He struggled through a sub-par (or so it seemed) 1993, missed much of 1994 due to injury, but came back in 1995 to go 11-10, 3.61, 1.23 WHIP.  Still just twenty-six, his future looked bright.  It wasn't.  He posted ERAs over 5.00 the next three seasons, which included time with Colorado and Detroit.  He was in AAA with Pittsburgh in 1999 and didn't do well there, either.  Given what might have been his last chance with Toronto in 2000, he went 10-5, 3.59, 1.22 WHIP.    He then went to Boston for 2001 and went a respectable 10-9, 4.21, 1.27 WHIP.  It was his last respectable season, though.  He struggled through a poor 2002, was in AAA with Oakland and Atlanta for all of 2003, and spent most of 2004-2005 in AAA as well, although he made two appearances with Boston in 2004 and one with Florida in 2005.  He pitched for York in the Atlantic League in 2007-2008 before ending his career.  He was 82-104, 4.56, 1.36 WHIP for his career.  He played for thirteen seasons, made 268 starts, and pitched 1595.1 innings.  He was a minor league pitching coach for a couple of seasons.  Sadly, his life story came to an end at the age of forty-four, as he drowned in Bartlett Lake in Arizona in 2013.

Record:  The Twins were 70-47, in first place, fourteen games ahead of Chicago.

BALTIMORE 6, MINNESOTA 4 IN BALTIMORE

Date:  Wednesday, August 7.

Batting stars:  Cristian Guzman was 2-for-5 with a stolen base, his ninth.  Corey Koskie was 1-for-3 with a walk.  A. J. Pierzynski was 1-for-3 with a walk.

Pitching stars:  Tony Fiore pitched two shutout innings, giving up a walk and striking out one.  J. C. Romero pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two hits.

Opposition stars:  Gary Matthews was 3-for-4 with a double.  Luis Lopez was 2-for-3 with a double and a walk.  Melvin Mora was 2-for-4 with a triple and a double.

The game:  Matthews singled home a run in the first.  In the second, the Orioles scored four times to take a 5-0 lead.  Jeff Conine and Chris Richard led off the inning with singles.  Geronimo Gil struck out, but Jerry Hairston singled to load the bases, followed by a two-run double by Mora, an RBI double by Lopez, and another run-scoring single by Matthews.  The Twins got back into the game with four in the third.  Pierzynski led off with a double and went to third on Jacque Jones' one-out single.  An error brought home one run, Koskie singled home another, and two more scored on another error, cutting Baltimore's lead to 5-4.  It stayed 5-4 until the fifth, when the Orioles loaded the bases with none out.  A double play and a ground out got the Twins out of the inning, but the double play scored a run to make it 6-4.  The Twins put men on first and second in the sixth and eighth, but did not score again.

WP:  Scott Erickson (5-10).  LP:  Rick Reed (9-6).  S:  Jorge Julio (22).

Notes:  Torii Hunter was 1-for-4 to make his average .311.

Bobby Kielty was 0-for-3 with a walk and was batting .305.

Pierzynski's average went to .309.

Reed settled down after the second, but still pitched only five innings.  He gave up six runs (five earned) on ten hits and no walks, striking out four.

Erickson was struggling through a poor year.  This was one of his better games, as he pitched seven innings and gave up four runs (one earned) on seven hits and a walk, striking out one.  His ERA went down to 4.80.  He would struggle through five more games, then be shut down at the end of August.  He would not pitch again until 2004.

This was Jorge Julio's rookie year, although he had appeared in eighteen games in 2001.  It was by far his best year, as he went 5-6, 1.99, 1.21 WHIP with twenty-five saves and finished third in Rookie of the Year voting behind Eric Hinske and Rodrigo Lopez.  He would be the Orioles closer for two more seasons but was not nearly as good.  In fact, he would not post an ERA under four again until 2008, when he was no longer a closer.  He went 0-7, 4.38 with 36 saves in 2003 and 2-5, 4.57 with 22 saves in 2004.  The Orioles finally took him out of the closer role in 2005 and traded him to the Mets for 2006.  The Mets sent him on to Arizona in late May.  He was traded to Florida after the season and traded again to Colorado in May of 2007.  The team that had him seemed always willing to get rid of him, but on the other hand there seems to always have been somebody who wanted him, thinking they could get him back to where he had been in 2002.  He signed with Cleveland for 2008, was released in late May, and signed with Atlanta, for whom he actually pitched well, but in only 12.1 innings.  He moved on to Milwaukee for 2009, then his major league career was over.  He played a couple more years for Bridgeport in the Atlantic League.  His major league numbers are 17-34, 4.43, 99 saves, 1.44 WHIP.  He basically turned one good year into a nine-year career, which is pretty good if you can do it.  At last report, Jorge Julio was a high school baseball coach in the Fort Lauderdale area.

Record:  The Twins were 69-46, in first place, leading Chicago by fifteen games.

BALTIMORE 9, MINNESOTA 2 IN BALTIMORE

Date:  Tuesday, August 6.

Batting stars:  David Ortiz was 2-for-3 with a two-run homer, his thirteenth.  Luis Rivas was 1-for-3.

Pitching star:  Johan Santana struck out nine in six innings, giving up three runs on four hits and two walks.

Opposition stars:  Luis Lopez was 2-for-5 with a grand slam.  Marty Cordova was 1-for-3 with a walk and a two-run homer, his fifteenth.  Sir Sidney Ponson pitched 6.2 innings, giving up two runs on six hits and a walk and striking out two.

The game:  Baltimore opened the scoring in the fourth by Jose Leon.  The Twins took the lead in the top of the sixth, as Ortiz hit a two-run homer.  The Orioles took the lead right back in the bottom of the sixth on Cordova's two-run homer.  The Orioles put the game out of reach in the seventh.  LaTroy Hawkins started the inning and gave up two singles and a walk, loading the bases with one out.  Lopez then hit a grand slam to make the score 7-2.  The grand slam did not kill the rally, as as Hawkins walked the next batter and came out of the game.  Kevin Frederick came in, walked the next two batters, threw a wild pitch to bring home a run, and got a ground out that allowed one more run to score, making the lead 9-2.

WP:  Ponson (6-5).  LP:  Santana (6-3).  S:  None.

Notes:  Corey Koskie remained out of the lineup.  He would return the next day.  Michael Cuddyer played third base and Dustan Mohr moved into the third spot in the lineup.  Each was 1-for-4.

Torii Hunter was 0-for-3 and was batting .311.

Eric Milton is listed as the starting pitcher in the box score, but he did not face a batter.  Santana made the emergency start and would remain in the rotation through the end of August.  Milton would not pitch again until September 2.

Hawkins was charged with five runs in a third of an inning, raising his ERA from 1.49 to 2.15.

This was Frederick's last game as a Twin.  He would make it back to the majors with Toronto in 2004.

The grand slam was one of two homers Luis Lopez would hit in 2002 and one of twenty-two he would hit in his career.  It was a surprisingly long career for a guy who was a career utility infielder.  He made his big league debut as a September call-up for San Diego in 1993.  He was with the Padres through 1996 with the exception of 1995, when he missed the entire season due to injury.  He never had a full season with them, but appeared in 77 games in 1994.  He was most used at shortstop, but played a decent number of games at second base and a handful at third.  He moved on to the Mets in 1997 and finally got his first full season in the majors in 1998.  He stayed in the majors through 2002, playing for Milwaukee from 2000 through June of 2002 and going to Baltimore after that.  He was in the minors all of 2003 but got back for another full season in the majors with the Orioles in 2004.  That was about the end of the line, though.  He played in seventeen games with Cincinnati in 2005 and that was it.  He never hit a lot, which of course is why he was a utility player rather than a regular.  He had a few seasons when he batted in the .270s, but his career line is .241/.293/.343.  His highest OPS was .732 with Milwaukee in 2000, the year he set his career high in homers with six.  But he could play all over the infield, and in he at least wasn't usually an automatic out.  If you can find managers who like you, that can sometimes lead to a long career.

Record:  The Twins were 69-45, in first place, leading Chicago by sixteen games.