AMERICAN LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Morris Returns to Old Form to Win

The Jack Morris who took a 9.91 earned-run average into Wednesday’s game came out of it looking remarkably like the Jack Morris whose 10-inning shutout two years ago gave the Minnesota Twins a World Series championship.

This time Morris victimized the Twins, pitching a five-hitter at Minneapolis for a 4-0 Toronto Blue Jay victory.

“I just hope that I can build off this, that it isn’t just one day,” said Morris, who had a season-high seven strikeouts and didn’t walk a batter. “If it is, at least it was a good day.”

Morris (4-7), a 21-game winner last season, is off to the worst start of his career. He matched scoreless innings with former teammate Scott Erickson (3-7) through eight. John Olerud’s sacrifice fly broke the tie in the ninth.

Morris hadn’t gone more than eight innings all season. Opponents were batting .359 against him entering the game, and it looked like that trend would continue when Chuck Knoblauch opened with a leadoff single.

Then Morris was nearly unhittable, allowing only one runner past second base in his first shutout since June 11, 1992.

Olerud, who singled in the fourth inning to stretch his hitting streak to 21 games--the best in the majors this season--drove in Devon White, who opened the ninth with a single off Erickson. Olerud is batting .406.

Milwaukee 7, Baltimore 2--Greg Vaughn had three hits and two runs batted in as the Brewers beat Oriole ace Mike Mussina for the second time this season.

Vaughn had run-scoring doubles in the first and seventh innings, giving him 12 runs batted in in his last six games.

Mussina (9-3) hadn’t lost in four games since giving up seven runs to the Brewers in three innings on May 21. On Wednesday at Milwaukee, he gave up four hits and three runs in the first inning.

Jamie Navarro (5-3) lasted only five-plus innings.

Chicago 4, Oakland 0--Jack McDowell pitched a three-hitter to beat the Athletics at Oakland, becoming the major leagues’ first 10-game winner.

McDowell (10-4) gave up two singles to Rickey Henderson and a two-out double in the eighth to Craig Paquette. He walked two and struck out a season-high eight in pitching his second shutout.

The only positive note for Oakland was Henderson breaking baseball’s all-time stolen base record, stealing second after singling in his first at-bat. It gave him 1,066 stolen bases, one more than Yutaka Fukumoto had from 1970-88 in the Japanese League.

Boston 7, New York 1--Mike Greenwell hit a three-run homer in the first inning and John Dopson and Greg Harris combined on a three-hitter as the Red Sox defeated the Yankees at New York.

Boston won for only the second time in 11 games. The Yankees had won five of six.

Cleveland 8, Detroit 2--Paul Sorrento’s two-run homer keyed a six-run third inning as the Indians ended a three-game losing streak.

Tom Kramer (2-2) held the Tigers, who had homered six times in the previous two days, to two runs on five hits in six innings.

Kansas City 5, Seattle 1--David Cone scattered four hits over eight innings and the Royals broke the game open with a three-run ninth as the Royals ended the Mariners’ season-high four-game victory streak.

Cone (4-7) walked three and struck out four and came within three outs of his first American League shutout.

Mariner starter Erik Hanson (5-5) lost for the fifth consecutive time and remains winless since May 8. He gave up two runs on 12 hits over eight innings.