AMERICAN LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Mattingly Comes Up Big but Not Crowd

They couldn’t give tickets away in Kansas City, where 1,000 free passes went unclaimed to a Friday night game in which Don Mattingly beat the Royals, 4-1, and New York’s investment in Jack McDowell paid quick dividends.

Mattingly’s three singles drove in all four Yankee runs, but his regret was the same as those of other players.

“I wish more people had been here to see us,” said the Yankee first baseman. “There’s no doubt the game has been damaged.”

Only 15,026 paying customers showed up on a cool Friday night, and 4,000 others were let in free.

The embarrassed Royals had planned for 5,000 freebies.

McDowell, who won 83 games the past five years with the Chicago White Sox before being traded to the Yankees, gave up six hits, struck out two and walked none in seven innings in his first start for New York. Another recent Yankee acquisition, John Wetteland, worked the ninth inning for his second save in as many games.

Seattle 9, Detroit 2--Ken Griffey Jr. hit an RBI single off a Kingdome speaker, finishing off the Mariner victory.

With runners on first and second in the eighth inning, Griffey hit a popup that first baseman Cecil Fielder seemed in position to catch. But the ball hit the speaker, 132 feet above the field and just beyond the bag, and dropped untouched 10 feet to the left of first base.

Milwaukee 8, Oakland 7--Pinch runner Fernando Vina barely scored on B.J. Surhoff’s sacrifice fly in the 10th inning for the Brewers at Milwaukee.

Oakland had scored a run in the top of the 10th, but the Brewers rallied for two runs in the bottom of the inning off Dennis Eckersley, who picketed with locked-out umpires before the game.

The crowd was much smaller than the announced paid attendance of 10,059, but larger than that predicted by Milwaukee Manager Phil Garner, who posted a note on his desk before the game that read: “4-28-95 Projected Attendance: 6,285 great fans.”

Minnesota 12, Baltimore 9--Pat Meares’ two-run single capped a five-run rally in the eighth inning at Minneapolis as the Twins kept the Orioles without a victory.

A parade of pitchers, 13 in all, gave up seven home runs.

Cal Ripken, Andy Van Slyke and Matt Nokes homered as Baltimore built a 6-0 lead. After the Orioles blew that edge, Rafael Palmeiro’s three-run homer gave them a 9-6 lead in the seventh.

Jerald Clark hit a solo homer in the seventh for the Twins, and they won it in the eighth with RBI singles by Kirby Puckett, Matt Merullo and Alex Cole and Meares’ hit off the glove of diving second baseman Manny Alexander.

Boston 10, Chicago 4--The Red Sox capitalized on Chicago’s continuing control and fielding problems--14 walks and four errors--to win at Boston, where Frank Thomas hit his second home run of the season for the White Sox and also doubled.

In its other two games, both losses, Chicago committed five errors, walked 14 batters and was outscored, 21-7.

Rheal Cormier (1-0) gave up two runs and two hits in five innings for Boston after being signed to a major-league contract earlier in the day.

Texas 10, Cleveland 9--Mickey Tettleton homered twice and drove in four runs, carrying the Rangers to a victory at Arlington, Tex.

Tettleton, picked up as a free agent by Texas, hit a three-run homer in the second inning and knocked the first pitch from reliever Jim Poole over the center-field fence with two outs in the bottom of the eighth.