AMERICAN LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Tigers’ Fielder Hits Homer a County Mile

Cecil Fielder hit a long home run Saturday night at Milwaukee and the Detroit Tigers kept their pennant hopes alive with a 6-4 victory over the Brewers.

Fielder, the major league home run leader for the second season in a row, hit what is believed to be the first fair ball out of County Stadium.

Fielder hit Dan Plesac’s first pitch of the fourth inning an estimated 520 feet. It was a drive that cleared the left-field bleachers and landed in a dumpster at the edge of the parking lot.

The longest home run ever is believed to be a 565-foot drive by Mickey Mantle at old Griffith Stadium in 1953.

Fielder handled his long home run easily. “It was just one AB,” he said. “The rest of the day wasn’t too good for me.”

His manager, Sparky Anderson, went wild.

“I’ve been coming to this park for 13 years,” he said. “I’ve never seen one leave from either side.”

Plesac said: “He got it all.”

The Tigers had a scare in the ninth inning when the Brewers scored three times, but Mike Henneman finally put out the fire. The Tigers remained 5 1/2 games behind Toronto in the American League East.

Toronto 6, Oakland 0--With Tom Candiotti (13-11) pitching another strong game at Toronto, the Blue Jays beat uninspired Oakland to increase their lead over the Boston Red Sox to 4 1/2 games.

John Olerud’s two-run double in the fourth inning was the key hit as the Blue Jays made it two in a row over the Athletics and three out of four in their closing drive against the West.

Toronto has 19 games left with the West.

In a scoreless tie between Bob Welch (11-12) and Candiotti, Jose Canseco led off the fourth inning with a line drive to left-center field that bounced off the wall. Candy Maldonado, who later hit his 10th homer, hustled the ball into the infield and Canseco, going into second base standing up, was tagged out.

The sellout crowd of 50,319 booed when Canseco and Manager Tony La Russa argued the call at second.

But what really hurt the A’s and made it easy for Candiotti was a walk and a single later in the inning not producing a run.

After Olerud’s hit in the fourth scored the first two runs, rookie shortstop Eddie Zosky, who had been thrown out at the plate trying for an inside-the-park home run in the third inning, singled home two more.

Maldonado’s home run in the sixth completed Welch’s 12th defeat. A year ago, when Welch earned the Cy Young Award, he was 24-6 on this date and the Athletics were breezing to the division title.

Candiotti, who gave up five hits in seven innings to improve to 13-11, lowered the league’s best earned-run average to 2.26.

Duane Ward and Mike Timlin pitched an inning to contribute to the major league-leading 15th shutout.

The Blue Jays are missing no opportunity to get help for the stretch run. Dave Parker, released by the Angels last week, will join them today to offer additional left-handed pinch-hitting power.

Texas 3, Minnesota 0--Oil Can Boyd, who entered the game at Arlington, Tex., with an earned-run average of 6.96, held the Twins to five hits in seven innings to win his second game.

Ivan Rodriguez gave Boyd (2-5) the support he needed with a two-run single in the fourth inning.

Cleveland 6, Baltimore 5--The Indians, held to one hit in the six previous innings at Baltimore, hit three singles in a row to win it in the 11th.

Mark Lewis singled in the winning run off Mike Flanagan and it ended a string of 25 1/3 scoreless innings by the Baltimore bullpen.

Seattle 4, Kansas City 3--Edgar Martinez broke a 2-2 with a sacrifice fly in the 11th inning off Steve Crawford (2-2) and Harold Reynolds followed with a run-scoring single at Kansas City.

Mike Jackson (7-6) pitched 1 1/3 innings and Bill Swift, Seattle’s fifth pitcher, got three outs for his 13th save, allowing Todd Benzinger’s double and Kevin Seitzer’s RBI grounder. With runners on first and second, George Pedre grounded to shortstop for the final out.

The game was delayed by rain in the third inning for 1 hour 35 minutes.