The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Minnesota Twins in 10 innings yesterday in a hard-fought game of baseball. At a baseball game anything could happen, and an MLB extra-innings game is always a possibility. It was quite a game that followers with Rays tickets will be talking about for days.
Rays pitcher Lance Cormier (4.70 ERA) got the win, while Matt Guerrier (1.93 ERA) took the loss for the Twins. Jeff Niemann went 6.2 solid innings for the Rays, allowed 6 hits, one home run and 3 earned runs with 2 walks and 5 strikeouts. Also pitching for the Rays was Grant Balfour (1.62), Randy Choate (6.16), and Joaquin Benoit (0.79). The Twins’s starter Carl Pavano went 6.1 innings, allowed 7 hits, no home runs and 2 earned runs with 2 walks and 4 strikeouts. Ron Mahay (4.09), Alex Burnett (3.12), Jose Mijares (2.12), Jesse Crain (4.22), Jon Rauch (2.61), and Brian Duensing (1.82) also pitched for the Twins. With the win, Cormier’s record goes to 3-1, while Guerrier falls to 1-3. Rafael Soriano earned the save for the Rays, bringing his saves up to 19.
In addition to the 5 runs, the Rays managed 12 hits and committed no errors. Carl Crawford led the Rays in hitting with 4 hits, followed by Willy Aybar’s 2 hits, and Ben Zobrist with 2. Carlos Pena had a tough day at the plate, leaving 7 runners on base. The Twins didn’t have anyone with a big night with not one batter getting more than 2 hits. The Twins managed 4 runs, 7 hits and 2 errors.
Umpiring duties were performed by Tim Tschida, Jeff Nelson, Tim Timmons and Alfonso Marquez. There were 40,665 Twins ticket holders in attendance at Metrodome.