American League Roundup : Orioles Blow 7-2 Lead, Lose to Red Sox in 13th; Lead Is 1 1/2 Games

The Baltimore Orioles continue to drop back to the pack in the East.

Rich Gedman hit a two-strike, two-out double to score Kevin Romine in the 13th inning Saturday night at Baltimore and lead the Boston Red Sox to a 10-8 victory. Dwight Evans drove in the final run with a single.

The defeat cut the Orioles’ lead over the Toronto Blue Jays and the Red Sox to 1 1/2 games. Cleveland, in fifth place, is only three games out of first.

The Orioles took a 7-2 lead in the fourth inning but the Red Sox, who had 20 hits and wound up leaving 19 runners on base, went ahead, 8-7, on Ellis Burks’ ninth home run of the season in the sixth.

In the seventh, Phil Bradley singled, stole second and third and scored on Joe Orsulak’s single to send the game into extra innings.

The Red Sox had a chance to win in the ninth when Oriole reliever Gregg Olson walked the bases full with two out, then escaped.

Bob Stanley pitched three shutout innings to gain his fourth victory. But the Orioles went down swinging. A double and a walk with two out in the bottom of the 13th brought up Cal Ripken, who had hit a three-run home run in the first inning. This time Ripken flied to left field to end it.

Nick Esasky led the Red Sox comeback. He hit a two-run double and a two-run home run, his 22nd homer of the season, tying his best. He has driven in 77 runs, the most he has ever had.

The game lasted 5 hours 23 minutes, the longest game in the league this season.

Milwaukee 5, Cleveland 1--One of the major reasons the Brewers believe they have as good a chance to win the East as anyone is the pitching of Chris Bosio.

Although he had a blister on his pitching hand that prevented him from throwing a fastball, Bosio pitched a six-hitter at Cleveland to improve to 13-7.

The right-hander used mostly sliders and change-ups after ripping a piece of nail off of a finger while throwing a split-finger pitch.

“The fastball is all finger pressure,” Bosio said. “The fastballs I threw, they hammered. It’s tough to win without your best stuff.”

In his last six games Bosio, who has already exceeded his previous high by two victories, is 4-1 with an earned-run average of 0.88.

Against the Indians this season he is 3-1 with an ERA of 0.51.

Toronto 2, Kansas City 0--A two-out double by George Bell in the eighth inning at Kansas City broke up a scoreless battle between Mark Gubicza of the Royals and Todd Stottlemyre.

Ernie Whitt followed with a single and that was all the scoring.

It was another tough defeat for Gubicza (10-10). Five of his defeats have been in games in which the Royals failed to score. He gave up seven hits and had 10 strikeouts in eight games.

An improving Todd Stottlemyre gained his fourth victory for the Blue Jays. He gave up five hits in seven innings.

Shortstop Tony Fernandez apologized to his teammates and Manager Cito Gaston for taking himself out of Friday night’s game and was back in the lineup. He continued in his slump, going 0 for 4.

Minnesota 6, New York 3--Roy Smith doesn’t claim to be the best pitcher around. The veteran right-hander of the Twins is just glad to be one of the best-supported.

The Twins, who had trouble scoring when Frank Viola was pitching this season, score often when Smith is on the mound.

In this game at Minneapolis the Twins’ bats boomed and Smith improved his record to 8-4, despite giving up three runs in the first three innings.

Hot-hitting Al Newman drove in the tie-breaking run with a bloop single in the fifth inning and the Twins added two more in the eighth. Newman is 11 for 26 (.423) in the last seven games.

In games Smith has started the Twins are 15-6.

“Dick Such (Twins pitching coach) kind of gently chewed me out after the third inning,” Smith said. “I needed that.”

Detroit 6, Texas 5--The Tigers, who have won fewer games than any other major league team this season, almost never come from behind to win. They won this game when two runs scored on Tracy Jones’ deep fly to left-center.

The Tigers were trailing, 5-3, going into the eighth inning.

Mike Heath led off the inning with his 10th home run. A walk to Fred Lynn and a single by the speedy Gary Pettis were followed by a one out wild pitch.

Then Jones hit his drive to left. Pete Incaviglia crashed into the wall while making the catch. Lynn scored as expected and Pettis kept right on running to score easily. While lying on the ground, Incaviglia flipped the ball to center fielder Cecil Espy, but there was no chance to get Pettis.

Seattle 4, Chicago 3--Jeffrey Leonard tied the score with a two-run homer in the sixth inning, and Alvin Davis homered in the 10th inning to give the Mariners the victory at Seattle.