MINNESOTA 3, ANAHEIM 0 IN ANAHEIM
Date: Tuesday, August 26.
Batting stars: Jacque Jones was 3-for-4 with a home run (his twelfth) and two runs. Denny Hocking was 2-for-4. Luis Rivas was 2-for-5 with a home run (his eighth) and a double. Shannon Stewart was 2-for-5.
Pitching stars: Brad Radke pitched a complete game shutout, giving up five hits and a walk and striking out four. He threw 98 pitches.
Opposition stars: Scott Spiezio was 2-for-3. Garret Anderson was 2-for-4 with a double. John Lackey pitched eight innings, giving up three runs on ten hits and one walk and striking out five.
The game: The Angels got a two-out double in the first but did not score. In the second, the Twins got consecutive singles from Jones, Torii Hunter, A. J. Pierzynski, and Hocking, but only scored once, as Hunter was thrown out trying to score on Hocking's hit. It was 1-0 Twins after two.
Anaheim again got a man to second in the second inning, this time with one out, but again did not score. They put men on first and second with one out in the fourth, but a double play took them out of the inning. Jones led off the sixth with a home run to make it 2-0. Rivas homered with two out in the seventh to make it 3-0. The Angels got one more threat, putting two on with one out in the ninth. Tim Salmon came up representing the tying run, but he hit into a double play to end the game.
WP: Radke (10-10). LP: Lackey (8-13). S: None.
Notes: Hocking was at third base in place of Corey Koskie. Jones was in left and Stewart in right. Dustan Mohr pinch-ran for DH Matthew LeCroy in the eighth.
Stewart was batting .314. Jones was batting .312.
This was the only shutout of the season for Radke. It was one of ten for his career. He had a high of two in 2001. He got his ERA below five for the first time since opening day, at 4.78. His game score of 80 was easily his best of the season--the next-highest was 69, back in April.
The Twins had put together back-to-back wins. Could they make it three in a row?
Record: The Twins were 68-63, in third place in the American League Central, 1.5 games behind Chicago. They were a half game behind second-place Kansas City.
