Facing elimination from the playoffs, the Twins bit into Anaheim starter Kevin Appier early in Game 5. Minnesota scored one run in both the first and the second. Meanwhile Joe Mays held the Angels scoreless until the third when Adam Kennedy let loose a solo homer.

The Twins remained in the lead through the fourth, but in the bottom of the fifth both Scott Spiezio and Kennedy hit solo shots, putting the Angels in the lead by one run. Both Appier and Mays found themselves in a bit of trouble in the 6th and were relieved mid-inning; neither relieving pitcher allowed anyone to score. Tim Salmon helped Minnesota out of their jam. While Salmon was at third, Troy Glaus hit a slow grounder toward him. Salmon felt he was too far down the baseline to safely return to the bag, so he went home, where he was easily tagged for the first out, likely because he was moving at a snail's pace. Then Shawn Wooten failed to make contact, striking out and allowing A.J. Pierzynski to throw out Garret Anderson, likely attempting to advance to third base on a hit-and-run.

Anaheim led 3-2 going into the 7th. Donnelly, who had relieved Appier, returned to the mound and loaded the bases before the Angels called upon post-season relief wizard Francisco Rodriguez. However, Rodriguez wasn't able to immediately extract Anaheim from their difficulties. He walked in the tying run and then allowed another baserunner to score on a wild pitch. Minnesota sacrificed in a third run before the half inning ended.

Unfortunately, the Twins minor comeback did nothing but anger the rally monkey. With two runners on base in the bottom of the seventh, Kennedy hit his third homer of the night, joining George Brett as the only players to homer three times in an ALCS game. After that Minnesota could not contain the Angels' offense, Anaheim scored 10 runs in the seventh. In addition to the runs scored on the homer, J.C. Romero walked home one run and another scored when Bob Wells hit David Eckstein with a pitch.

The Twins would get a hit in the eighth, but the game was decided in the seventh. However, there was no excuse for FOX breaking away from the telecast of the ALCS game in the ninth inning to switch to the NLCS game. Reportedly, the switch was made so that we could see the first pitch of Game 4 of the NLCS, and they promised to bring us back for the 3rd out of the top of the ninth. However the NLCS game hadn't started yet, so instead we viewed at least 7 minutes of commercials, mostly from our local affiliate. Then they cut back to show Tom Prince popping out to end the game and send Anaheim to the first World Series in franchise history. Despite not playing in Game 3 and going 1-for-10 with 1 run in the other three games, Kennedy's 3 HR, 5 RBI, and 4-for-4 night earned him the ALCS MVP.

Even if the other game had been starting, the clinching of a Series' berth, even in a blow out, is far more important than the first few pitches of non-deciding Game 4. If anything important happened in the Cardinals/Giants game, the network possesses excellent replay tools that could have been used to bring viewers up-to-date once Anaheim had won.

I think the Twins have a very good, young team, and I was pleased to see them experience success this year, silencing most of the naysayers. Nevertheless while Minnesota has been down and out in recent years, they've won two World Series in the last 30 years. They're also set to continue improving and should make it back to the Series before 2006 and win again before 2021, which is more than they would achieve with "perfect" competitive balance. Meanwhile the Angels are the oldest franchise in baseball never to even attend a World Series as they've been in the league since 1961. Consequently, I welcome a rally monkey and thunder stick-filled World Series.

Fernando Vina attempted to brush away thoughts of his mishaps of the previous day with a leadoff double in the top of the first for the Cardinals. St. Louis put together several hits in the first and scored two runs to take an early lead. Then Andy Benes and Livan Hernandez entered a pitchers' duel, though neither pitcher truly dominated their opponent. Rick White took over for Benes in the middle of the sixth, as though he struck out Rich Aurilia to start the inning, Benes walked both Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds. White allowed J.T. Snow to double, scoring both Kent and Bonds, tying the game in the sixth. Snow very vocally expressed his pleasure with the hit, though no sound was broadcast. LaRussa had the left-handed Jeff Fassero ready to pitch to Snow, but after the Aurilia strikeout, he felt comfortable leaving White on the mound, defying his traditional strategy of maximizing platoon advantages.

The bullpens held the tie through the seventh. In the top of the 8th, Eli Marrero swung and missed on a hit and run, Tino Martinez ran, and though Benito Santiago threw to second, Martinez was safe because Kent bobbled the tag. However, the Cardinals were unable to score. In the bottom of that inning, St. Louis walked Barry Bonds, and Santiago followed with a two-run shot to give the Giants the lead.

St. Louis attempted to recover in the ninth. Kerry Robinson made it to first on a dropped third strike, as Santiago was unable to catch a slider in the dirt that bounced away from him. Vina singled to get on base, and though Renteria grounded out, they had men on second and third with only one out when Jim Edmonds came to the plate. Edmonds hit a nice single into right field and was visibly and audibly very upset when Vina held up at third instead of scoring the tying run of the game. He uttered his profane disbelief overly close to a microphone and network sensors failed to prevent it from going out over the air.

I dislike being prissy with language and would prefer to quote directly. However, we make an effort not to publish words on the site that might cause filtering programs to block our site, thereby limiting our readership.

Although I consider myself a fan of the Cardinals and they're supposed to be a very close knit group, Edmonds has subtly behaved like a real prima donna during this series between the outfield light incident the other day and his behavior in this game, not to mention yelling at the umpire over balls and strikes. I was disappointed Vina didn't score, but looking at the replay, the ball wasn't hit overly deep into right, and he easily could have been out at home. Of course, Vina didn't make it home and St. Louis lost to the Giants, however players still shouldn't attack teammates on national television. At this point, I think we'll only have one more game before we can say, like one sign at PacBell, "Bye, Bye, Birdies."