MINNESOTA 5, SAN FRANCISCO 2 IN SAN FRANCISCO
Date: Thursday, June 5.
Batting stars: Cristian Guzman was 3-for-5 with a triple. A. J. Pierzynski was 2-for-3 with a triple and two RBIs. Bobby Kielty was 2-for-4 with a walk.
Pitching stars: Kyle Lohse pitched eight innings, giving up two runs on seven hits and no walks and striking out three. Eddie Guardado pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and a walk and striking out one.
Opposition stars: Benito Santiago was 2-for-4 with a double. J. T. Snow was 1-for-3 with a two-run homer, his third. Jim Brower struck out four in three innings, giving up one run on two hits and a walk.
The game: Guzman tripled with one out in the first and scored on a Doug Mientkiewicz single to put the Twins up 1-0. Their first two batters in the second reached base, but it stayed 1-0 until the third. Torii Hunter walked with one out, stole second, and scored on Kielty's single to make it 2-0. In the fourth Chris Gomez doubled and scored on Guzman's single to boost the lead to 3-0. In the fifth Kielty got a two-out single and scored on Pierzynski's triple to put the Twins ahead 4-0.
The Giants got back into the game in the bottom of the fifth when Santiago led off with a double and Snow followed with a two-run homer. That was all they could do, however, and in the seventh Hunter walked, stole second, took third on a ground out, and scored on a sacrifice fly to make it 5-2 Twins.
The Giants brought the tying run to bat in the eighth and the ninth, but did not score either time. They had men on first and third with two out in the eighth, but Rich Aurelia grounded out. Bonds walked to lead off the ninth and Santiago followed with a single, but the next three batters went out to end the game.
WP: Lohse (5-4). LP: Jesse Foppert (3-5). S: Guardado (17).
Notes: Gomez was at second base in place of Luis Rivas. Kielty was in right field (there was no DH). Dustan Mohr went to right in the ninth.
Jacque Jones was 0-for-5 and was batting .310. He was on a 6-for-34 streak, dropping his average from .343.
Lohse's ERA was 3.01. Guardado's ERA was 1.75.
Over his last six starts, Lohse was 3-1, 1.90. He pitched at least 6.1 innings in all of them, at least eight in four of them, and had two complete games. His ERA fell from 4.46.
Pierzynski hit 24 triples in his career, with a high of six in 2002. Half of his career triples came with the Twins.
Benito Santiago seems to have kind of dropped out of memory, but early in his career he was as good a catcher as anyone. He won the Rookie of the Year award in 1977. He won four Silver Sluggers and three Gold Gloves. He made five all-star teams. The thing is that he did all of that, except for one all-star team, in his first six full seasons. He was still a decent player after that, though. He played in twenty major league seasons, which is pretty good in and of itself. I don't say he belongs in the Hall of Fame or anything, but he was one of the top catchers in baseball for several seasons.
Record: The Twins were 33-25, in first place in the American League Central, 4.5 games ahead of Kansas City.