AMERICAN LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Key Proves a Perfect Opening-Day Pitcher

For starters, the New York Yankees couldn’t have asked for anything better.

The sun was shining after a terrible, snowy winter. Yankee Stadium was full. Joe DiMaggio threw out the first pitch. And then Jimmy Key became the first Yankee to win consecutive opening-day starts since the ‘60s.

Key, coming off an 18-6 season, pitched the Yankees to a 5-3 victory over the Texas Rangers on Monday with late-inning help from Bob Wickman and Xavier Hernandez.

“I looked at it as here is our first chance, the first test for our bullpen,” Key said. “It was a big test, a lot of pressure.”

Wickman came through, pitching out of the eighth-inning jam. Then Hernandez finished the job with a perfect ninth.

Key, 5-0 in openers, gave up five hits in seven innings before Hulse and Clark chased him.

Wade Boggs had four consecutive singles for the Yankees, and Danny Tartabull and Mike Stanley hit fifth-inning home runs.

Toronto 7, Chicago 3--Roberto Alomar and the rest of the Blue Jays got to celebrate again at Toronto in front of Jack McDowell and the White Sox.

Hours after the Blue Jays received another set of World Series championship rings, Alomar hit a three-run homer that led Toronto past the White Sox and their Cy Young winner.

Rookie Carlos Delgado and Ed Sprague added consecutive home runs as Juan Guzman and the two-time champions won on opening day before a sellout crowd of 50,484.

The White Sox lost in their first game since moving from the West to the new Central. They lost their final game of 1993 to Toronto, too, in the sixth and deciding game of the playoffs.

Alomar’s home run in the seventh inning put the Blue Jays ahead for good, 4-2. After Joe Carter drew a leadoff walk from Jose DeLeon to start the eighth, Delgado and Sprague homered for a 7-2 lead.

Boston 9, Detroit 8--Thanks to some new speed, the Red Sox got off to a fast start on opening day at Boston.

Otis Nixon raced home on Mickey Tettleton’s passed ball, capping a three-run eighth inning.

Roger Clemens, coming off the worst of his 10 seasons, broke Cy Young’s Red Sox record with his seventh opening-day start, but was hammered for eight runs in 4 2/3 innings.

Boston had only 73 stolen bases last season and signed Nixon to a $7-million, two-year deal to jolt its offense. It paid off in the eighth.

With the Red Sox trailing 8-6, Scott Cooper doubled and John Valentin singled against Storm Davis. Damon Berryhill struck out, Scott Fletcher flied out and Nixon walked, loading the bases.

Billy Hatcher’s ground double inside the right-field line scored two runs. Mike Greenwell, booed in the seventh after his fourth consecutive out, then came up. With a 2-0 count, a high pitch went off Tettleton’s glove and rolled to the backstop as Nixon scored easily.

Baltimore 6, Kansas City 3--Mike Mussina rebounded from a dreadful spring training, and the Orioles extended the Royals’ opening-day woes with the victory at Baltimore.

Mussina, who had a 6.75 ERA in six exhibition starts, gave up one run on two hits in eight innings. Lee Smith, signed to replace Gregg Olson as the stopper, got the last out for a save.

Rafael Palmeiro, also part of the Orioles’ big-bucks makeover, hit a solo homer in his Baltimore debut.

“We almost played a perfect game--good pitching, a lot of hitting and outstanding defense,” Palmeiro said. “It was a lot of fun.”

Palmeiro received a huge ovation before the game and was asked to come out for a curtain call after opening the seventh inning with a homer over the 25-foot wall in right.

“I’ve had some great games, but today was the first day I’ve gotten a ovation and I never felt so good in my life,” he said. “I know I’m going to love this place.”

A crowd of 47,549, the biggest regular-season crowd in the history of Camden Yards, saw the Orioles send Kansas City to its eighth loss in its last nine openers.