Minnesota’s Revenge

There were major surprises in the “Autumn Festival” of the major league baseball yesterday. The Minnesota Twins defeated the ‘champion-nominee’ New York Yankees on October 1 at Yankees Stadium in the American League Division Series first game by a final score of 3-1. It is Minnesota’s first victory against the Yankees after 13 loses in a row for past two years including this season’s seven defeats.

Minnesota’s five pitchers kept the Yankees’ strong sluggers under control scattering nine hits and allowing only one run, while Minnesota’s offense generated seven hits and 3 runs during seven innings of dreadful pitching from Mike Mussina, who until yesterday, had beaten Minnesota 20 times, while having lost only twice against them.

Luis Rivas brought in Minnesota first run with a sacrifice fly with runners on 1st and 3rd base with 1 out in the 3rd inning. In the 6th inning with a runner on 1st base and one out, Minnesota locked up the victory with Torii Hunter’s three-base hit and the error by the Yankees’ 2nd baseman, making the score at that point 3-0.

In National League’s Division Series, Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants achieved triumphs respectively.

The Chicago Cubs beat the Atlanta Braves by a score of 4-2 on a road trip thanks to Kerry Wood’s one-man show in both pitching and batting. Wood stopped the Braves by recording 11 strikeouts, gave up two hits and two runs in 7 and 1/3 innings pitched. Wood played a major role in a 3-1 comeback win by hitting a double in the 6th inning, with runners on 2nd and 3rd and a tied score of 1-1 and one out. Because Choi Hee-seop (Chicago Cubs) and Bong Jung-geun (Atlanta) were not short-listed, they didn’t play in that game.

San Francisco beat the Florida Marlins by 2 to 0. Jason Schmidt, whose earned run average (ERA) is 2.34 (best in the National League), got a complete game shutout, giving up just three hits. It’s San Francisco’s first shutout in the post season in the past 16 years.

Meanwhile, Boston Red Sox, the team which Korean ‘Nuclear Submarine’ Kim Byung-hyun pitches for, and the Oakland Athletics will meet in Oakland for the first match of Division Series on October 2.

Chang Jeon jeon@donga.com