AMERICAN LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Yankees Use Long Ball as Key Wins 14th

Jimmy Key became a 14-game winner and Gerald Williams homered twice to lead the New York Yankees to a 9-3 victory over the Mariners at Seattle on Saturday night.

Key, who is 14-2 and 32-8 in his 1 1/2 seasons with the Yankees, equaled his season high with eight strikeouts to defeat major league strikeout leader Randy Johnson (10-5).

“I tried to change some things,” said Key, who lost his last start against the Mariners at Yankee Stadium July 2, ending an 11-game winning streak. “They had 10 hits off me the last time I saw them. When they hit you that well, you’ve got to try to change something. It might not work or it might. I tried to change some pitch patterns and stuff like that to disturb the hitters. It seemed to work.”

Key went seven innings and gave up only three hits while walking five as the Yankees won their third in a row from the Mariners.

New York took a 1-0 lead in the first on Don Mattingly’s run scoring double, then made the score 3-0 in the second when Mike Stanley hit his 10th homer and Williams got his first homer of the game.

Cleveland 2, Chicago 0--Dennis Martinez won his eighth consecutive decision, pitching a four-hitter, and the Indians moved a game ahead in the Central Division at Chicago.

Martinez (9-4) gave up a single to Darrin Jackson in the second, a double in the third by Tim Raines, a single to Frank Thomas in the sixth and another single by pinch-hitter Warren Newson in the eighth. He walked two and struck out four.

“He’s the same Dennis I remember,” said Chicago’s Tim Raines, who played with Martinez for Montreal. “He never gave in to any hitters. He threw it just the opposite of the way you thought he was going to throw.”

The Indians, with their second victory in the first three games of the four-game series, scored in the first on Omar Vizquel’s single and a run scoring double by Carlos Baerga, extending his hitting streak to 13 games.

Minnesota 5, Milwaukee 2--Jim Deshaies and three relievers limited the Brewers to six hits and the Twins hit three home runs at Minneapolis.

Deshaies (5-9) gave up five hits in 6 1/3 innings before giving up a home run to Greg Vaughn. Rick Aguilera, Minnesota’s fourth pitcher, worked a perfect ninth for his 20th save.

Pedro Munoz, Scott Leius and Alex Cole homered against Bill Wegman (6-3), who lost his third consecutive start.

Texas 4, Toronto 2--Ivan Rodriguez homered for the third time in five games and Kevin Brown gave up only seven hits in eight innings at Arlington, Tex.

Brown (7-8) struck out six and walked two. Tom Henke pitched the ninth for his 10th save. Rodriguez hit a two-run homer against Pat Hentgen (11-6) in a three-run third. He later singled, his 17th hit in 36 at-bats over his last nine games.

Detroit 13, Kansas City 7--Travis Fryman’s grand slam capped an eight-run fourth inning and Kirk Gibson added a two-run homer in the seventh at Kansas City.

Juan Samuel had a single, double and triple with two runs batted in and three runs scored for the Tigers. Wally Joyner went five for five for the Royals.

Joe Boever (8-2) won in relief of Bill Gullickson, who started the fifth with a 10-3 lead but failed to get out of the inning. Boever gave up two hits in four shutout innings.

Oakland 9, Boston 0--Scott Brosius hit two home runs, including a grand slam in the third inning, to keep the Athletics four games behind the Rangers in the AL West. Rickey Henderson and Ruben Sierra hit home runs in the first inning to give the A’s a 3-0 lead.