NEW YORK 15, MINNESOTA 1 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Monday, April 21.
Batting stars: Matthew LeCroy was 2-for-4. Dustan Mohr was 1-for-4 with a home run, his second.
Pitching star: Tony Fiore struck out five in 3.2 innings, giving up one run on three hits and three walks.
Opposition stars: David Wells pitched a complete game, giving up one run on seven hits and a walk and striking out three. Erick Almonte was 3-for-4 with a double, a walk, and three runs. Raul Mondesi was 3-for-4 with a double and a hit-by-pitch. Nick Johnson was 3-for-5 with two home runs (his second and third), a walk, three runs, and four RBIs. John Flaherty was 2-for-5 with two runs. Alfonso Soriano was 1-for-5 with a grand slam (his seventh homer) a walk, and two runs. Bernie Williams was 1-for-5 with a two-run homer (his fifth) and a walk.
The game: I see no need to give play-by-play of all fifteen of the Yankees' runs. Johnson hit a two-run homer in a three-run third. Soriano hit a grand slam in the fourth to make it 7-0. A walk and five singles in the fifth made it 11-0. Johnson homered again in the seventh to make it 12-0.
The Twins avoided the shutout when Mohr homered leading off the eighth. Williams hit a two-run homer in a three-run ninth.
WP: Wells (3-0). LP: Rick Reed (1-3). S: None.
Notes: Tom Prince was behind the plate in place of A. J. Pierzynski. LeCroy was at first base in place of Doug Mientkiewicz. Chris Gomez was at third in place of Corey Koskie. Mohr was in left field in place of Jacque Jones. Bobby Kielty was in center in place of Torii Hunter, who was the DH. Michael Cuddyer was again in right field.
Denny Hocking came in to play third base in the seventh inning. Gomez moved to second and Luis Rivas came out of the game.
Gomez was 0-for-4 and was batting .391. Kielty was 1-for-4 and was batting .356. Prince was 1-for-3 and was batting .333.
Mohr raised his average to .125. Hocking was 0-for-1 and was batting .133. Hunter was 1-for-3 with a walk and was batting .179.
By game scores, this was Reed's worst game of the season. He lasted 4.1 innings and surrendered 11 runs (10 earned) on 10 hits and 3 walks. He struck out four and had a game score of 2. His ERA went up to 7.52. The good news, if you want to call it that, is that this is as high as his ERA would ever go this season.
Fiore got his ERA down to 6.39.
This was the only three-hit game of Erick Almonte's career. He was the Yankees' starting shortstop from the start of the season until early May, due to an injury to Derek Jeter. It was the only time he was a starter in his career. Of his 133 career at-bats, 100 of them came in 2003--he had 4 in 2001 and 29 in 2011, when he was with Milwaukee. He was in the Yankee organization through 2003, was in the Rockies' chain in 2004, was in Japan in 2005, played independent ball in 2006, was in the Detroit organization from 2007-2008, was with the Brewers from 2009-2012, and played in Mexico in 2013. His AAA numbers are .283/.361/.424, not bad numbers at all. In the majors, however, he batted .233/.282/.331. I don't know about his fielding, but he batted well enough in the minors to think he could've helped someone in the big leagues. This was his only chance to do it, though, and while he batted .260/.321/.350 he wasn't going to beat out Derek Jeter no matter what he did.
So the Twins have now begun their season with six series sweeps. They won three, lost six, won six, and now have lost seven. We'll see if another series sweep awaits when they head to Kansas City.
Record: The Twins were 9-10, in third place in the American League Central, six games behind Kansas City.