Advertisement

AMERICAN LEAGUE ROUNDUP : White Sox Win Final Meeting With Indians

Share
From Associated Press

Eight exciting games in 11 days left the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians voicing the same lament Sunday: Too bad it’s not September.

Julio Franco homered and drove in three runs and Alex Fernandez slowed down the Indians as the White Sox won, 4-2, at Cleveland in the final game of the season between the Central Division leaders.

The White Sox and Indians split their final four-game series, keeping Chicago two games in front. The teams also split four games in Chicago last weekend. The White Sox won the season series, 7-5.

Advertisement

“We played them 12 games, regardless,” White Sox Manager Gene Lamont said. “For the fans’ sake and baseball’s, it’s real interesting to play them in September, to play the contenders in the heat of the pennant race. We can’t do that because the schedule is made up.”

For their part, the Indians seemed satisfied that they had made a decent impression in what was perhaps their most important series in a generation. They haven’t been pennant contenders since the 1950s.

“I’ve never seen this much media before in Cleveland,” losing pitcher Charles Nagy said. “It was a big series for the fans. Who knows? It might help us down the road. People talked about must-win games, and it’s only the end of July. We proved we can beat each other.”

Fernandez (10-7) gave up two runs and six hits in eight innings, quieting a Cleveland lineup that had scored 25 runs over the previous three games. He struck out five, walked one and improved to 5-0 over his last eight starts.

Toronto 4, Texas 2--The Blue Jays won their eighth consecutive game as they completed a four-game sweep of the West Division-leading Rangers at Toronto.

Brad Cornett gave up five hits in six innings for his first major league victory for the two-time defending World Series champions, who are 7-0 at home since the All-Star break.

Advertisement

Paul Molitor led off the eighth inning with his 14th homer and fourth in four games to put Toronto ahead, 4-2, and help hand the Rangers their fifth loss in six games.

Boston 8, Seattle 2--Mike Greenwell homered and John Valentin drove in three runs to lead the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

Boston and Seattle split the four-game series, which was moved to Boston because of falling ceiling tiles in the Kingdome.

The Red Sox got six hits and scored three runs in the first inning against George Glinatsis (0-1), who began the season in Class A. He lasted only two-thirds of an inning in his second major league start. Valentin hit a two-run homer and Tom Brunansky had a run-scoring double.

Kansas City 6, Detroit 4--Jose DeJesus pitched five innings to gain his first major league victory in nearly three years as the Royals won for only the fourth time in their last 11 road games.

DeJesus, called up from triple-A Omaha on July 16, was making his first start of the season and gave up five hits and three runs. He won for the first time since Aug. 31, 1991 when the Philadelphia Phillies beat Atlanta, 10-4.

Advertisement

Minnesota 10, Milwaukee 6--Kirby Puckett’s two-run homer highlighted a five-run seventh inning for the Twins at Milwaukee.

Puckett drove in four runs. Kent Hrbek hit a three-run homer for the Twins. Dave Winfield added a solo homer and Chuck Knoblauch scored four runs.

Oakland 7, Baltimore 6--Rickey Henderson scored on a wild pitch by Mark Eichhorn in the bottom of the ninth inning at Oakland to give the Athletics the victory.

Scott Hemond hit a three-run homer against Alan Mills in the eighth to tie the score at 6-6. The A’s trailed, 6-0, after six innings.

“I went up there with kind of a pinch hitter’s mentality. I didn’t want to let him get ahead of me,” Hemond said. “So I was looking for a fastball, something good to hit.”

Advertisement