TEXAS 9, MINNESOTA 4 AT TEXAS
Date: Thursday, July 10.
Batting stars: Corey Koskie was 3-for-5. Denny Hocking was 2-for-2. A. J. Pierzynski was 2-for-5 with two doubles. Matthew LeCroy was 2-for-5.
Pitching star: Joe Mays pitched a scoreless inning of relief, giving up one hit.
Opposition stars: John Thomson pitched seven innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on eight hits and two walks and striking out four. Michael Young was 3-for-4 with a three-run homer (his ninth), a double, and two runs. Juan Gonzalez was 2-for-4 with two home runs (his twenty-second and twenty-third) and four RBIs. Mark Teixiera was 2-for-4 with a home run, his thirteenth.
The game: Young and Hank Blalock opened the game with singles, and later in the first Gonzalez hit a three-run homer to give the Rangers a 3-0 lead. The Twins got on the board in the third when Cristian Guzman reached on an error and scored on a Doug Mientkiewicz single. Gonzalez homered in the fourth to make it 4-1, but the Twins got the run back in the fifth when Mientkiewicz walked, went to third on a Koskie single, and scored on a ground out, cutting the margin to 4-2.
But it was downhill from there. In the bottom of the fifth, Laynce Nix and Einar Diaz singled and Young hit a three-run homer. In the sixth Teixeira homered and another run scored on a sacrifice fly. It was 9-2 and the game was pretty much gone.
The Twins put two on in the seventh, but nothing came of it. They did add two in the eighth. LeCroy singled, Bobby Kielty walked, and an error loaded the bases. A double play scored a run and Hocking singled home another, but that was all the Twins could do. They got a two-out double in the ninth, but no more, and it ended 9-4.
WP: Thomson (6-9). LP: Rick Reed (4-9). S: None.
Notes: Dustan Mohr remained in left and Kielty in right in the absence of Jacque Jones. Hocking pinch-hit for Cristian Guzman in the seventh and remained in the game at shortstop.
LeCroy raised his average to .303. Koskie raised his average to .300.
Reed lasted 4.1 innings, allowing seven runs on eight hits and a walk and striking out three. His ERA went to 5.03.
James Baldwin made his Minnesota Twins debut in this game. He had signed with the Twins on June 10. He would stay for a little over a month, then be released. In this game he pitched 2.1 innings and gave up two runs (one earned) on two hits.
The Twins offense was again shut down by a mediocre pitcher. Thomson would go 13-14, 4.85 in 35 starts for Texas in 2003. He had been mediocre for Colorado in 1997 and 1998, but people made allowances for his youth and the thin air of Denver. He was horrible in 1999, then was injured (or maybe he was injured and then was horrible), missed all of 2000, and came back to be fairly good in 2001. He only had one good year after that, though: with Atlanta in 2004. Not that he was terrible; he just was, as we said mediocre. For his career he was 63-85, 4.68.
The Twins had lost five in a row and nine of ten. They're only consolation was that Kansas City and Chicago weren't doing much, either. They had to feel like the all-star break couldn't come fast enough, but there were three games to play in Anaheim first.
Record: The Twins were 44-46, in second place in the American League Central, 4.5 games behind Kansas City. They were one game ahead of third place Chicago.
