It’s Ugly, but Hentgen Continues Twin Mastery

For once, Pat Hentgen couldn’t beat the Minnesota Twins by himself. But the Twins gave him a lot of help at Minneapolis.

Benefiting from four errors, eight walks, two wild pitches and a hit batter, the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Twins, 9-6, Wednesday night as Hentgen survived his worst outing against Minnesota.

“It wasn’t very pretty,” said Twin shortstop Pat Meares, whose eighth-inning error led to two unearned runs.

Shawn Green homered for the third consecutive game for Toronto and Jose Canseco had four hits. They each drove in two runs.

“Jose had a great day,” said Toronto Manager Tim Johnson. “This is the way I saw Canseco in Boston for two years. He can carry the ballclub. And Shawn Green is swinging the bat good now.”

Hentgen (1-0) came into the game with a 9-1 career record and a 1.74 earned-run average against the Twins, and he hadn’t allowed them an earned run since a 2-1 loss on May 15, 1996.

He was even staked to a 5-0 lead this time, thanks to two first-inning errors and the wildness of starter LaTroy Hawkins (1-1). Hawkins threw 85 pitches in three innings, giving up five runs on five hits and four walks.

But the Blue Jays led only 7-6 when Minnesota knocked out Hentgen after 5 2/3 innings. The six runs Hentgen allowed were nearly one-third the 19 earned runs the Twins had scored off him in his previous 15 starts against them.

Hentgen had gone 32 innings against the Twins without allowing an earned run until Meares’ two-run double in the second.

New York 4, Seattle 3--Even after all his years in the game, Yankee Manager Joe Torre marvels at the way baseball strategy has a way of working out.

Twice Torre had the hit-and-run sign on to Chad Curtis in the eighth inning at Seattle with pinch-runner Homer Bush at first base. With the count 1-2, Torre let Curtis swing away against Bobby Ayala.

“I put him in the hole and he winds up hitting a home run,” said Torre after Curtis’ two-run homer gave the Yankees the victory in Hideki Irabu’s first start of the season. “He has four hits against him and three are home runs. I guess you’d say he’s been comfortable against him.”

Curtis’s homer carried 410 feet over the center-field fence off Ayala (0-1).

“I was trying to shoot the ball out there somewhere,” Curtis said. “I was trying to move the runner. Every now and then you get a pitch you can handle and that was today.”

Graeme Lloyd (1-0), the third Yankees pitcher, pitched one-third of an inning for the victory. Irabu went five innings, giving up one run on four hits with two walks.

The Mariners wound up their season-opening homestand 3-5, leaving Manager Lou Piniella with a pained look on his face.

“There’s nothing to assess,” Piniella said. “What is there to assess? Well, we didn’t start the homestand like we would have liked. That’s for sure.”