AMERICAN LEAGUE ROUNDUP : A’s Win With Record Rally, 10-9

Craig Paquette’s two-run home run in the seventh inning Friday capped a rally from an 8-0 deficit, giving the Oakland Athletics a 10-9 victory over the Kansas City Royals at Oakland.

The comeback was the A’s greatest since they moved from Kansas City.

“It was good news and bad news,” Manager Tony La Russa said. “The bad news is we fell behind, 8-0. The good news is that we came back to win.”

Paquette’s homer, his second of the season, came against Royal reliever Tom Gordon (4-2).

Rich Gossage (4-3) pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings for the victory and Dennis Eckersley worked 1 1/3 innings for his 13th save.

The A’s worked their way back after the Royals’ seven-run second inning, marked by George Brett’s 648th career double.

“It was a weird game--strange,” Eckersley said. “Not that I thought we weren’t going to win. It was just, ‘Here we come, here we come.’ It was a big win.”

New York 5, Minnesota 0--Danny Tartabull hit a three-run homer in the first inning and Jimmy Key lowered his earned-run average to 2.17 with six scoreless innings to lead the Yankees at New York.

Key (8-2) developed a blister on his left index finger and was replaced by Bobby Munoz to start the seventh.

Milwaukee 6, Detroit 3--Cecil Fielder hit two homers for the second time this week, but it wasn’t enough to offset homers by Kevin Reimer and John Jaha as the Brewers won at Detroit.

Cal Eldred (9-6) gave up three runs--all on homers--and seven hits in 6 2/3 innings and won his third consecutive start.

Toronto 11, Boston 2--John Olerud extended his hitting streak to a club-record 23 games and Paul Molitor had four hits and scored four runs for the Blue Jays at Toronto.

Olerud, whose streak is the longest in the majors this season, surpassed the old club record of 22 games set by George Bell in 1989. He went one for three and collected his club-record 16th intentional walk to drop his average one point to .403.

Roger Clemens (7-6) gave up six runs and five hits in two innings.

Baltimore 4, Cleveland 1--Ben McDonald won for the first time since April and Cal Ripken ended a one-for-19 skid with a three-run homer at Cleveland.

The Orioles have won 14 of their last 17 games.

Seattle 3, Texas 2--Dave Fleming made his second consecutive strong start at Seattle, helping the Mariners to their fifth victory in six games.

Fleming (2-1) gave up seven hits and two runs, walked one and struck out one in 7 2/3 innings.