Twins Rally By Devil Rays

The Minnesota Twins have been saying all spring that they are an improved team.

The Twins backed that Tuesday night, rallying for two runs in the ninth inning against Roberto Hernandez to beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays 6-5.

Last year, Minnesota was just 1-87 when trailing after eight innings.

"Whatever the stats were on comebacks in 1999, this is a new year," said Minnesota's Jacque Jones, who went 3-for-4 with two RBIs. "Baseball is strange that way. We hope to do a lot of things differently this year."

After Matt Lawton fouled out, David Ortiz capped the rally with an RBI single to beat Hernandez (0-1), who converted 43 of 47 save chances last year.

"Not too many good things happened to us early tonight, but we persevered and got it done," Twins manager Tom Kelly said. "It would have been better to win like this last night with all the people here, but we'll take it."

Minnesota's opening-night crowd of 43,830 saw few home-team highlights in a 7-0 loss. Tuesday's crowd of 7,020 got mre for its money.

Tampa Bay, which led 5-2, never trailed until the final hit.

"We'll just have to regroup and be ready to go tomorrow," Devil Rays manager Larry Rothschild said. "I thought the grounder we erred in the ninth was almost a routine play."

Tampa wasted a career-high five RBIs by John Flaherty, who had a three-run homer and a two-run double.

"I thought Eric Milton pitched well, he just made two mistakes," Kelly said. "He got a couple of pitches up in the strike zone and Flaherty whacked them. Give Flaherty credit -- he had five RBI before you could blink."

Hector Carrasco (1-0), the Twins' fourth pitcher, retired the lone batter he faced, with runners at second and third in the top of the ninth.

Flaherty hit a three-run homer to put the Devil Rays ahead in the second following one-out singles by Greg Vaughn and Herbert Perry, then made it 5-2 with a two-run double in the fourth.

Vaughn, signed as a free agent during the offseason, was 2-for-3 with a double and two walks.

Ryan Rupe allowed three runs and six hits in six innings.

Milton allowed five runs and seven hits in six innings and walked three.

Minnesota closed to 3-2 in the second on two-out singles Jones and Marcus Jensen, and Torii Hunter's two-run double. Jones added RBI singles in the fourth and the eighth.

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