American League Roundup : Rangers Beat Yankees Twice, Take West Lead

The Texas Rangers didn’t just knock the New York Yankees out of first place in the East by sweeping a doubleheader Sunday at Arlington, Tex., they slipped into first place in the West.

After Oddibe McDowell hit a two-run home run in the fifth inning of the opener to lead the Rangers to a 6-3 victory, the Rangers turned a seven-run fourth inning into a 9-1 romp in the nightcap.

The Rangers’ surge to the top of the West has coincided with highly touted rookie Pete Incaviglia starting to hit. The rookie, following a sensational power display as a collegian at Oklahoma State, had been a bust in the American League.

He went 2 for 3 in the opener and scored a run. In the nightcap Incaviglia doubled twice in the seven-run inning that enabled Jose Guzman to end a five-game losing streak and win for the first time since the opening game.

Incaviglia, who hit 48 home runs and drove in 143 last year for the Cowboys, has hit safely in nine straight games. When he started the streak he was batting .150. The spurt, in which he is 13 for 31, has raised his average to .242. He has five home runs and has driven in 14 runs.

The young slugger started to hit after Manager Bobby Valentine ordered him to stop writing a weekly column in the Dallas Morning News .

The Rangers are 15-13 and lead the Angels by .005. After 28 games last season they were 9-19 and had lost 27 games before winning their 15th. It would appear that Incaviglia and Valentine are becoming a winning combination.

Chicago 5, Cleveland 4--It seems as if the large crowds now watching the Indians may be too much for the team to handle. The large weekend crowds for the series with the White Sox--there were 45,000 in attendance on Sunday--caused stage fright. The 10-game winning string didn’t just end, it turned into a three-game losing streak.

Tim Hulett beat out an old-fashioned Baltimore chop to the pitcher’s mound to score the winning run in the eighth inning and give the rejuvenated White Sox their third win in a row.

The series drew 111,336 fans, the first time except for a Fourth of July series four years ago that a three-game series had drawn in six figures in Cleveland in years. The Indians drew only 655,000 last season.

Maybe, the pressure of the big crowds rooting for them didn’t have anything to do with it, but, the Indians lost two of them after leading going into the last two innings and the other in the 11th inning.

“We know we can rebound,” said Joe Carter, whose run-scoring single in the fourth had given the Indians a 4-3 lead. “We feel we have a team that can be contenders throughout the season.”

Detroit 4, Minnesota 1--Lance Parrish and Pat Sheridan hit second-inning home runs at Minneapolis and Dan Petry pitched a four-hitter as the Tigers ended a four-game losing streak.

Petry loaded the bases in the fifth inning, but after getting Kent Hrbek to hit into an inning-ending double play, he was in control until Steve Lombardozzi led off the seventh with a home run.

The second-inning home runs were too much for 6-8 Mike Smithson (4-3). He hit Darnell Coles twice afterthe barrage. When he hit Chet Lemon in the seventh, he was ejected. Last season the giant right-hander hit 15 batters to lead the league.

Baltimore 4, Kansas City 3--Rick Dempsey was batting only .189 and playing only about half the time, but he made a good guess in the fifth inning at Baltimore.

With the bases loaded and the Royals leading, 3-0, Dempsey guessed that Charlie Leibrandt (4-1) would throw a fastball. Leibrandt did and when Dempsey hit a grand slam for his eighth hit of the season, the left-hander’s unbeaten streak ended abruptly.

It made a winner of Storm Davis (3-1). Former Angel Don Aase worked the final 1 innings to pick up his eighth save.

“That was the best ball I’ve hit all season,” Dempsey said. “It was a lift. We needed somebody to pick us up and I’m glad I could do it.”

Boston 6, Oakland 5--Oil Can Boyd gave up three home runs, including one of the two hit by Carney Lansford, but he survived at Oakland to beat the league’s winningest pitcher and put the Red Sox into first place in the East.

Moose Haas entered the game with a 1.65 ERA and a 6-0 record. But the sizzling Red Sox took advantage of six walks and a 4-for-4 performance by Rich Gedman to win their fifth in a row.

Haas failed to go the distance by one out. Marty Barrett, hitting safely in his 12th game in a row, singled in a run in the ninth to make it 6-4. It was a good thing, because Lansford homered in the bottom of the ninth to make it a one-run game.

Toronto 4, Seattle 3--After winning their first two games at Seattle under new Manager Dick Williams, the third figured to be easy. After all, they were going up against Jimmy Key, who was 0-3 and had an ERA of 13.05.

But, after giving up three runs in the second inning, Key settled down to pitch well and win his first game. Mark Eichhorn got the last four outs to earn his first save.