ESPN.com - Elimination? Twins feel no pressure

ESPN.com: Baseball

Saturday, October 5, 2002
Updated: October 7, 12:42 PM ET
Elimination? Twins feel no pressure

By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com

MINNEAPOLIS -- Hey, Bud Selig could have told the Oakland A's that if there's one thing those Minnesota Twins are allergic to, it's that word, "elimination."

Like Godzilla, James Bond and the eternally lovable Barney the dinosaur, the Twins apparently have become one of those outfits in life you just can't kill.

	“	That's what we're all about -- survival. Either we lose or we win. But I'll tell you one thing: I ain't flying all the way out there for nothing. ”
		— Torii Hunter

They've been contracted. They've been underestimated. And Saturday, they came to the ballpark knowing that if they didn't beat the Oakland A's -- and a pitcher who had never lost in the Metrodome (Tim Hudson) -- they weren't going to be permitted to play any more baseball this year.

But just as the contraction monsters couldn't put them out of business, the A's couldn't, either.

It was the team with 103 wins (Oakland) that discombobulated in an 11-2 implosion in the decibel-laden Metrodome. And it was the team that was supposed to be doomed -- literally -- that got to play another day. Again.

That may have been a stunner to folks who looked at this as just a baseball game. But to the Twins, this was more than one game. It was their whole year in microcosm.

"We're used to it, man," said Torii Hunter, after the Twins had ridden a seven-run fourth inning to a Game 5 sudden-death duel Sunday in Oakland. "Our whole team almost got eliminated. So elimination -- we're used to that."

What a saga these Twinkies have lived. Spent their offseason on one giant conference call, trying to figure out if they were heading for spring training or a dispersal draft. Then spent the season on one giant mission to make the rest of the sport wish it had never, ever thought of that dastardly contraction plot.

But through all of that -- through the rumors all winter and the long trail through the baseball summer -- they had never before faced a day like Saturday. If they didn't win, there was no court in the land, no temporary restraining order that could bail them out this time.

They had to do it themselves.

"Today was different," said catcher A.J. Pierzynski, whose postseason batting average currently stands at .500 (6 for 12). "It was different because every other year, we always knew when the last day of the season was. Today, we weren't sure if this was the last day or not. But it was in our hands."


	Torii Hunter, right, has tremendous baserunning instincts.

Well, better their hands than their favorite commissioner's.

"Today," Pierzynski said, "is the first day we really showed people the way we play. The whole series, we haven't played the way we played all season -- until today."

Before this game, the Twins had made four times as many errors as Oakland (4-1) in this series. They'd been outscored, 20-11. They'd given up at least one run in the first inning of three straight games (something they never did all season).

Their pitchers had a 5.54 team ERA. Their starters had given up 15 runs in 13 2/3 innings. And while their hitters hadn't really swung at every single pitch the A's threw, it sure seemed like it sometimes.

On Saturday, though, they restored order in the court. They had a starting pitcher (Eric Milton) who threw a first-pitch strike to every one of the first 12 Oakland hitters (13, if you count Jack Morris' ceremonial first-pitch strike). They caught everything. And they had a nonstop succession of tough at-bats against Hudson.

Which wasn't to say they didn't have an early scare -- when Miguel Tejada skipped a two-run homer off the top of the wall in the third inning to put the A's ahead, 2-zip. But that lead didn't even last as long as Doug Mientkiewicz's name.

Pierzynski's leadoff single kicked off a two-run third inning that did more than tie the game. It forced Hudson -- starting on three days' rest for the first time in his career -- to throw 33 pitches to extricate himself from the inning.

Then Mientkiewicz -- in an obvious ploy to force the nation's media to spell his name as often as possible -- made a spectacular diving play to rob Terrence Long of what would have been an RBI single in the top of the fourth. And that seemed to flip a switch of emotion that reverberated around the always-combustible Metrodome.

Mientkiewicz -- there, we spelled it again -- marched right up and singled off Hudson. And that launched one of the goofiest innings in recent postseason memory.

Pierzynski, who has never reminded anybody of Barry Bonds, then ground out a seven-pitch walk. ("I mostly go up there, look for a certain pitch -- and if I don't get it, I usually swing anyway," Pierzynski said. "But today, I fouled off a lot of pitches.")

Then came the pivotal play of the day. Mr. MVP, Miguel Tejada, had what looked like an easy force on Mientkiewicz at third on a Luis Rivas chopper into the shortstop hole. Instead, Tejada heaved the ball into the dugout. And the Twins led for the first time since Game 1.

On his way to third, Mientkiewicz confessed, he was thinking "if I would have eaten one less cheeseburger, I would have beat that play. But thankfully, he threw it over my head."

That, however, was just the beginning of an inning in which the A's unraveled in every way imaginable. Hudson wild-pitched in a run. Then he hit Jacque Jones with a pitch. Then first baseman Scott Hatteberg bounced a throw to the plate for another error.

It was 5-2. And that finished Hudson. If you're keeping track, he threw an unbelievable 64 pitches in his last 1 1/3 innings.

"It was one of those innings where you just try to stop the bleeding somewhere," said Hudson, who was 11-1 lifetime in domes, 3-0 (with a 1.98 ERA) lifetime in the Metrodome and 8-0 in his last 13 starts before this game screwed up all those figures. "It was just one of those things. But it seemed like I was out there, looking up at the scoreboard and seeing `one out,' for like 10 minutes."

Hudson hadn't lost to anybody since July 24 -- and hadn't lost to a team other than the Angels or Mariners since May 19. But he became the latest victim of The October Curse of Short Rest.

Amazingly, he was the 15th consecutive pitcher to start a postseason game on three days' rest and not get a win. (This stat made possible, in part, by a grant from Byung-Hyun Kim; the streak would end later in the day when Jarrod Washburn won for Anaheim.)

But his pitching coach, Rick Peterson, said he saw no signs that had any impact on Hudson, other than on how many pitches he was able to throw (94).

"Typically, short rest would show up with guys hitting a lot of balls that were up in the strike zone -- and tiring early," Peterson said. "But I didn't think that happened at all. I thought he threw the ball well. But out of 60 strikes, they hit 21 foul balls. And to me, that's a combination of two things -- good stuff and good at-bats. I didn't think they wore him down. They just did a great job of grinding out at-bats."

After Hudson departed, the A's brought Ted Lilly in to complete the seven-run meltdown. It featured four hits, a walk, a hit batter, two wild pitches and two errors that made all seven runs unearned.

"We've done that, we've made those kind of mistakes, the whole series," Pierzynski said. "They've put pressure on us every game. Today, we finally played a game where we put some pressure on them for a change."

"They're a good team," Hudson said. "But I know we're a lot better than we showed today."

So Sunday, two sensational stories collide in Oakland, with only one happy ending possible.

The Yankees' bat boys have a bigger payroll than both teams combined. The commish could easily market this showdown as The Aberration Bowl.

In one corner, you have the A's -- with their tiny payroll and their 296 regular-season wins in this millennium. They've spent three years trying to win that one last game to elevate themselves into the ALCS. But counting Saturday's mess, they're now 0-5 these last three Octobers in games that would have won them a series.

"At least we get to go home, because we earned the right to play this game at home," Hatteberg said. "And we're very comfortable at home."

In the other corner, however, is a team full of guys who weren't even supposed to have a home -- who were supposed to have been scattered around 28 other big-league cities by now. They've lived through their near-death experience. And they keep finding whole new forms of reincarnation.

"This is just the same old same old for us," Mientkiewicz said. "I don't know whether we're just too stupid to get rattled, or what. But we're a loose group."

They'll need more than looseness to survive this test, though. Counting this series, they're eight games under .500 (23-31) in games started by left-handed pitchers. And at last check, Oakland's starter Sunday -- Mark Mulder -- was still left-handed.

"They're probably not too worried," Mientkiewicz said. "I wouldn't either, with Mulder going. He's beaten us like 400 times in a row. But maybe he'll let us win one for a change."

OK, actually, Mulder has only beaten them twice in a row. (They beat him, 2-1, in May.) And he's "only" 5-2 lifetime against them, counting the postseason. His ERA is even higher than 2.00 (by a tenth of a run, anyway).

But the Twins get to start Brad Radke, the man who won Game 1 -- not to mention the pitcher who stopped Oakland's 20-game winning streak last month. And unlike Mulder, he's on his regular four days' rest.

So the sun will shine, the baseballs will fly and the roof will be however blue the sky is. And when this game is over, either the A's will finally be heading for that LCS -- or the Twins will have proved once again that not even titanium is this indestructible.

"That's what we're all about -- survival," Hunter said. "Either we lose or we win. But I'll tell you one thing: I ain't flying all the way out there for nothing."

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.