NEW YORK 2, MINNESOTA 0 IN NEW YORK
Date: Thursday, April 10.
Batting stars: Chris Gomez was 2-for-4. A. J. Pierzynski was 0-for-1 with two hit-by-pitches.
Pitching stars: Rick Reed pitched four innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on six hits and two walks and striking out two. Johan Santana struck out eight in four shutout innings of relief, giving up four hits.
Opposition stars: David Wells pitched a complete game shutout, giving up three hits and striking out six. Hideki Matsui was 3-for-4 with a double and two RBIs. Bernie Williams was 3-for-4. John Flaherty was 2-for-4 with a double.
The game: The Yankees had men on first and second with two out in the first and second and third with one out in the second, but did not score either time. That changed in the third. With one out, Jason Giambi walked and went to third on Williams' single-plus-error. Matsui then delivered a two-run double to give New York a 2-0 lead.
And that was it for the scoring. The Twins got a one-out double from Gomez in the fourth, but he was stranded on second. They put two on with two out in the fifth and did nothing with them. They did not get a man past first after that, managing only a pair of singles over the next four innings.
WP: Wells (2-0). LP: Reed (0-2). S: None.
Notes; Gomez was at short in place of Cristian Guzman. Dustan Mohr was in left in place of Jacque Jones. Michael Cuddyer was in right.
Gomez was batting .364.
The Twins had five starters in this game with batting averages below .200. At the bottom was Rivas at .091. Matthew LeCroy was batting .125. Torii Hunter was batting .129. Cuddyer was batting .143. Mohr was batting .158.
The Twins made no lineup substitutions.
I don't know why Reed came out after just four innings. He had thrown seventy pitches, which is a lot for four innings but doesn't seem like a lot for a game. He would not miss his next start. Santana obviously did an excellent job, which didn't help in this game but did save the rest of the bullpen for the next one.
You probably remember that Wells threw a perfect game against the Twins. For his career, he was actually better against them than Mussina was: 19-6, 2.34, 1.01 WHIP in 200.1 innings (38 games, 25 starts).
After sweeping Detroit to start the season, the Twins had now been swept by Toronto and New York. In the Yankee series, they were outscored 11-4. In the losing streak they were outscored 30-10. They would next travel to Toronto to take another shot at the Blue Jays.
Record: The Twins were 3-6, in fourth place in the American League Central, five games behind Kansas City.