AMERICAN LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Tigers Turn On Power, Rout Indians, 13-4

The Detroit Tigers live and die with the home run.

Lately, they have been living the good life.

Rob Deer hit two home runs and Mickey Tettleton added a three-run homer to lead the Tigers to a 13-4 victory over the Cleveland Indians on Thursday at Cleveland.

After a slow start, the Tigers have put themselves back among the home run leaders with 15 in their first 10 games. The Tigers led the majors last year with 209 home runs.

Deer, who missed four games because of a stiff neck, has five hits this season, all home runs. He hit four homers in four games at Cleveland.

Deer hit 25 homers last season, but batted .179. He worked with Chicago White Sox hitting coach Walt Hriniak during the winter.

“The swing I worked on all winter was the swing I had today,” Deer said. “The one time I struck out I wasn’t disappointed because I had a great swing. I had good balance today.”

The Tigers won three of four games in Cleveland after starting the season with six consecutive losses. They scored 35 runs and collected 45 hits in the four games.

Deer led off the third with a homer off Dennis Cook (0-1), then hit a two-run drive off Scott Scudder shortly after an 18-minute rain delay interrupted the sixth inning.

Bill Gullickson (1-2), a 20-game winner last year, pitched 5 1/3 inning for the victory.

Toronto 7, New York 6--Joe Carter hit a run-scoring single in the ninth inning and Roberto Alomar scored the winning run from first base on center fielder Roberto Kelly’s error to give the Blue Jays the victory at Toronto.

Steve Farr (0-1), who escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the eighth, walked Devon White to open the ninth. Alomar singled, advancing White to second, and Carter singled. Kelly charged the ball and attempted to throw out Alomar at third, but the ball skipped into Toronto’s dugout, giving the Blue Jays their ninth victory in 10 games.

Duane Ward (1-0) pitched the ninth in relief of Jack Morris, who gave up six runs and seven hits in eight innings. Morris struck out four and walked three.

Don Mattingly and Jim Leyritz hit home runs for the Yankees.

Chicago 5, Seattle 4--George Bell hit a two-run homer and singled to start a two-run rally that helped the White Sox get the victory at Chicago.

Bell singled to start a two-run second and hit his third homer off Rich DeLucia (1-1) in thethird inning after Steve Sax had singled.

Fernandez (1-1) gave up four hits, walked three and struck out four in seven innings. Scott Radinsky retired four batters and Bobby Thigpen came on to earn his fourth save.

Tino Martinez of the Mariners hit a home run.

Oakland 1, Kansas City 0--Keith Miller’s two-base error with two outs in the 10th inning gave the Athletics the victory at Kansas City.

The Royals, off to their worst start at 1-9, were victimized when Miller let Willie Wilson’s fly ball to left field skip off his glove. Jamie Quirk, who had singled off reliever Jeff Montgomery (0-1), came around to score.

Dennis Eckersley pitched the 10th for his fourth save.

Dave Stewart (1-0) earned the victory.