AMERICAN LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Royals’ Gubicza Cools Off Hot White Sox, 1-0

The Chicago White Sox have been hot, the Kansas City Royals have not. But it’s amazing what a fine pitching performance can do to change momentum.

Even though the Royals scored only their fourth run in four games, it was enough to end the White Sox’s seven-game winning streak, as Mark Gubicza (5-6) held the White Sox to two hits in seven innings for a 1-0 victory Friday night at Kansas City.

The Royals had 11 hits off Wilson Alvarez in seven innings but produced only former Dodger Tom Goodwin’s run-scoring single in the second inning to end a four-game losing streak.

Gubicza shut down a White Sox team that had averaged almost nine runs during their winning streak and put together a .353 batting average during the run.

The day before, the White Sox had 22 hits in beating Milwaukee, 17-13.

But for Alvarez (1-5), they couldn’t score and it was his 10th start without a victory since he beat the Royals on May 6.

“I read in the paper this morning about all those runs they scored,” Gubicza said. “Yeah, great, these guys are really scuffling coming in here. I needed to pitch well.”

In the battle for second place in the American League Central, the Royals pulled 5 1/2 games ahead of the White Sox.

Toronto 6, Baltimore 5--Alex Gonzalez singled home the winning run with one out in the ninth inning at Toronto to give the Blue Jays their first three-game winning streak this season.

The Blue Jays, who won the last two World Series but are last in the AL East, had won two in a row six times. It was the longest into a season the Blue Jays had gone before winning three in a row.

Gonzalez’s hit drove in Candy Maldonado, who opened the ninth with a single and was sacrificed to second.

“The more situations like this, the more comfortable you feel,” Gonzalez said.

Milwaukee 12, New York 6--Joe Oliver hit a home run and drove in five runs as the Brewers routed the Yankees at Milwaukee to end their seven-game losing streak.

Since the Brewers scored 13 runs Thursday only to lose, 17-13, to Chicago, a 7-5 lead going into the fifth didn’t give the Brewers much to feel safe about. But they sent 11 men to the plate in the fifth to score five more runs.

Several Brewers said that a brawl the night before in the ninth inning after Rob Dibble of the White Sox zipped a fastball past Pat Listach’s head would fire them up, and it did.

Yankee pitcher Melido Perez (5-5) had to leave in the third inning because his shoulder stiffened.

Detroit 7, Boston 6--After blowing a three-run lead at Boston, the Tigers finally took the lead for good in the eighth inning on Travis Fryman’s run-scoring single.

The Tigers’ sixth victory in nine games enabled them to cut the Red Sox’s lead in the East to five games.

Jose Canseco started Boston’s tying rally in the sixth when he answered a brush-back pitch with his third home run.

Texas 10, Seattle 2--Former Dodger Kevin Gross, who had a 2-7 record and an earned-run average of 9.11 (10.97 on the road), pitched a six-hitter at Seattle and the Rangers regained sole possession of first place in the West.

Juan Gonzalez hit two home runs for the Rangers, who bounced back from a 20-4 humiliation at the hands of the Angels Thursday night.