GAME 4
Twins 11
A’s 2
MINNEAPOLIS – Pressure? Terrence Long, the center fielder of a team that today will attempt for the sixth time in the last three years to finally put away a division series, says he feels “more pressure when I go to the dentist.”
It was a curious analogy from a longstanding member of a team that finds getting to an ALCS like pulling teeth. The A’s, winners of 103 games, including an American League-record 20 in a row, suffered a root canal of a two-error, two-wild-pitch, one hit-batsman, seven-run fifth inning yesterday in losing Game 4 to the Twins, 11-2, and will have to finally be made numb to failure today in Oakland by Mark Mulder.
And though Mulder won 19 games this year, and Game 2 of this series, it’s scary. The A’s lost Game 5 in 2000 on Long’s misplay of a three-run triple by Jorge Posada, and completed a collapse from a 2-0 lead with two key errors (by Greg Myers and Jason Giambi) in Game 5 of 2001. Today, the Twins will try to fit Oakland with a dunce cap, presumably with the feather with which the A’s have tickle-tortured themselves and their fans for three years.
“The last two [ALDS], we were playing the Yankees,” said Eric Chavez. “This is a big difference.” The only real difference will be if the A’s finally nail one of the great moving targets in postseason history.
Their spookathon moved into Phase Three yesterday when Tim Hudson, who immediately gave back two runs of an early 4-run lead in Oakland’s Game 1 loss, just as promptly returned the two-run lead the A’s had after Miguel Tejada’s two-run, third-inning homer.
Long says baseball is fun, but after Hudson gave up doubles to Jacque Jones and David Ortiz (the latter’s first hit of the series) to tie the game, it didn’t look like the A’s were having any.
Jermaine Dye, who had immediately answered a Minnesota tying rally in Game 4 with a home run, led off the fourth with a double off starter Eric Milton, but first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz made a diving stop of a two-out smash by Long, then led off the bottom of the inning with a single.
With one out, Hudson walked A.J. Pierzynski, asking for all the bad luck that followed. Tejada went to his right to field a two-on, one-out chopper by Luis Rivas and threw the ball over Chavez’s head at third. Mientkiewicz scored on that error and Pierzynski came in on a wild pitch.
After a Hudson slider dropped on Jones’ foot, Scott Hatteberg fielded Cristian Guzman’s bouncer at first and double-clutched before wildly bouncing his throw to the plate, enabling Rivas to score.
“[Rivas] froze for a second and I hesitated, then got my feet tangled,” said Hatteberg. Ted Lilly was greeted by a Koskie RBI single, then wild-pitched in another run before Torii Hunter and Mientkiewicz had RBI hits to complete the meltdown.
Milton, who gave up six hits, was able to float the Twins to a showdown where one ship is carrying a lot more baggage than the other.
“[Mulder] has beat us, it seems like 300 in a row [he’s actually 5-1 against the Twins], but you see what one break can do,” said Mientkiewicz.
It can make a team break down, and on a flight last night that was considerably longer than Minnesota’s to the same destination, the A’s had time to ponder their errors and again, the number of ways they could have put a series away.
“We could have been waiting to see who we’d play,” said Long. “You have to make the plays.” Their best player especially.
“I never put myself down on what I did the game before,” said Tejada. And to get over a hump that has turned into a mountain, the A’s have to follow their MVP’s lead.