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BOX SCORE
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GAME LOG
MINNEAPOLIS -- Brad Radke might have found the key to
completing starts.
Radke rediscovered his curveball, which made his other three
pitches even more effective Wednesday in the Minnesota Twins' 4-1
victory over the Baltimore Orioles.
|  | | Twins catcher Chad Moeller congratulates Brad Radke after his third complete game of the season. |
"I wish I had that curveball every time I went out there,"
Radke said. "I don't know where that came from. I think I'm
throwing it harder and not just looping it up there, which is
giving me a better break."
Radke (11-4) needed only 119 pitches to complete his third game
of the season. Manager Tom Kelly called on closer LaTroy Hawkins to
warm up briefly in the eighth, then didn't use him.
"The fewer decisions I have to make," Kelly said, "the better
chance we have to win."
Radke, who has struck out six and walked one, has allowed just
four earned runs in his last four starts, pitching 28 innings.
"I think today we ran into a little bit of a buzzsaw," said
Jerry Hairston, who had two singles for Baltimore. "Brad was
really on."
Radke took a 1-0 lead and a two-hitter into the sixth, then
allowed the tying run when Hairston singled, took third on Delino
DeShields' double and scored on Jeff Conine's sacrifice fly.
Radke hooked up with Sidney Ponson for a duel that lasted until
Ponson was hit in the hip by a comebacker by David Ortiz in the
eighth.
Ponson (7-11) had been 5-0 against the Twins, including 2-0 this
season. He struck out a career-high 11 batters and walked one over
7 2/3 innings.
Ponson said most of the strikeouts came on split-finger
fastballs.
"It was a lucky pitch," he said. "It's a pitch I just started
throwing in my last two starts."
Ponson's only walk turned into the Twins' tiebreaking run.
With the score 1-all in the seventh, Ponson walked Corey Koskie
with one out and gave up a single to Torii Hunter that put runners
on first and third.
Jacque Jones' grounder drove in the go-ahead run and Chad
Moeller followed with an RBI single. Ron Coomer added a run-scoring
single in the eighth.
"That one walk opened the door for two of those runs to
score," Orioles manager Mike Hargrove said. "He had one walk in
the whole game, and it came back to bite him."
Ponson allowed only one run in the first six innings, an RBI
single in the second by Jones that drove in Coomer, who had
doubled.
Game notes
Attendance was just 5,753. It was switched from a night to
day game because the Twins must play a makeup game in Boston on
Thursday before beginning a three-game series Friday in Seattle.
... The Orioles completed a 13-game road trip, their longest since
a 13-game trip in 1996. ... Karim Garcia replaced late scratch
Jesse Garcia at designated hitter in Baltimore's starting lineup,
becoming the Orioles' 49th player. That's the second-highest total
in club history. In 1955, the Orioles used 54 players. Karim Garcia
was purchased from Triple-A Rochester on Friday.
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ALSO SEE
Baseball Scoreboard
Baltimore Clubhouse
Minnesota Clubhouse
RECAPS
Minnesota 4
Baltimore 1
Oakland 6
Boston 4
Cleveland 6
Tampa Bay 2
Anaheim 1
Detroit 0
Toronto 7
Seattle 3
Chi. White Sox 13
Texas 1
Kansas City 3
NY Yankees 2
Cincinnati 11
NY Mets 8
Chicago Cubs 8
Colorado 5
Atlanta 7
Arizona 1
Houston 13
Florida 5
Montreal 7
St. Louis 2
Pittsburgh 8
Los Angeles 3
San Diego 7
Milwaukee 6
San Francisco 5
Philadelphia 4
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