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Win-win situation Twins top Indians after staving off contraction for 2003Posted: Friday June 07, 2002 1:35 AM
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- It's been a long time since the Minnesota Twins got this much good news in one day. After their landlord finalized an agreement to drop a lawsuit against Major League Baseball -- and keep the Twins off the contraction list for 2003 in exchange -- Minnesota took another series from its division rival and beat one of baseball's best pitchers. Torii Hunter hit a three-run homer in a five-run fifth inning to help the Twins beat Bartolo Colon and the Cleveland Indians 8-3 Thursday night. "Anytime you can beat Mr. Colon, you've done something," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. The Twins have won five of six at home from the Indians since they were swept in a four-game series at Jacobs Field in April and went 5-14 against them last year. Minnesota leads Chicago by four games and Cleveland by 4 1/2 in the AL Central. Jacque Jones was 3-for-5 with two doubles and two RBIs for Minnesota, which fell behind 3-1 heading into the fifth. "You keep battling and battling," Jones said, "and you're going to break 'em." Colon (7-4) had his shortest outing this season at 4 2/3 innings. He lost for the first time in seven starts since April 28 and his ERA grew to 2.69. He surrendered six runs, nine hits and a pair of walks while striking out five. "I'm real down," Colon said through his interpreter, bullpen coach Luis Isaac. "The team got me runs, and I let them down." Colon said he was in pain after his elbow hit his knee while following though on a second-inning pitch. "I thought he'd go out and get them," Indians manager Charlie Manuel said. "Instead, things fell apart. His velocity was down, he lost command of his pitches and control of the game." The league leader in complete games with four, Colon allowed only nine earned runs in his eight previous outings. His shortest outing before this one was 5 1/3 innings April 11 against the Twins. But after breezing through the first two innings, he gave up an RBI single to Jones in a three-hit third and had thrown 58 pitches by the end of it. Then came an arduous fifth inning he began with a 3-1 lead. The Twins sent nine to the plate against Colon before Chad Paronto entered to get the last out. A double by Jones brought the Twins within one, and a single by Doug Mientkiewicz tied it. After a walk to Corey Koskie, Hunter hit the first pitch over the giant right-field wall for his 15th homer, making it 6-3. "He grooved one," Hunter said. "It was nice and tasty." Until throwing a complete-game shutout in a 7-0 victory against Chicago last Friday that keyed a three-game sweep of the White Sox, Colon got three runs or less from teammates in eight straight starts. The Indians scored three Thursday, but could easily have had more against Twins starter Kyle Lohse (6-3), who finished five innings and gave up seven hits, three runs and three walks. Matt Lawton doubled to right in the third, but Dustan Mohr and cutoff man Luis Rivas made perfect throws to get John McDonald at the plate. Cleveland left the bases loaded in the fourth, and didn't score until Omar Vizquel's double in the fifth. Ellis Burks and Milton Bradley added RBI singles to give the Indians their short-lived two-run lead. Handed a three-run lead to start the sixth, reliever Tony Fiore pitched two hitless innings and Mike Jackson and Eddie Guardado struck out five between them in the eighth and ninth. "Lohse kind of lost his focus out there," Gardenhire said. "He can be better than that, but the bullpen came in and did a great job. You can't say enough about them. We scored a bunch of runs and then we shut the door right away. Get the boys back in the dugout. That's huge." Notes: In the eighth, Bradley made a running, leaping catch off Cristian Guzman's sacrifice fly to center and hopped around in pain after landing awkwardly on his foot. He stayed in the game. ... Colon is 2-4 with a 4.47 ERA in eight career starts at the Metrodome. Boston's Fenway Park and Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium are the only two other parks where he has a losing record. ... Jones is second in the AL in batting against right-handers at .361, behind Seattle's Carlos Guillen. |
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