AMERICAN LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Surprise Knoblauch Homer Leads Twins

Chuck Knoblauch almost never swings for the fence, so his heroics Tuesday night must have happened by mistake.

“I screwed up, didn’t I--me hitting a home run?” Knoblauch said after his two-out home run in the ninth inning gave the Minnesota Twins a 6-5 victory over the Indians at Cleveland.

The Indians have been winning games in the late innings all year. But the magic has worn off lately, and they have lost five of their last seven games.

“We left 13 people on base,” Cleveland Manager Mike Hargrove said. “We had our chances. We just couldn’t drive in the key run. It can’t happen every night, and it just didn’t happen for us tonight.”

Pat Mahomes (1-4), the Twins’ fifth pitcher, pitched two-thirds of an inning and walked two before giving way to Scott Watkins, who retired the only batter he faced with one pitch in his major league debut.

Toronto 12, Baltimore 10--Domingo Cedeno’s three-run homer capped a six-run ninth inning that carried the Blue Jays at Baltimore.

The rally came against Baltimore closer Doug Jones (0-4), who gave up all six runs before getting an out in the ninth.

Toronto’s comeback overshadowed Bobby Bonilla’s first home run for Baltimore, a three-run shot that had given the Orioles a 9-6 lead in the sixth.

Boston 13, Detroit 3--John Valentin drove in a career-high six runs as the Red Sox took advantage of a struggling Mike Moore and beat the Tigers at Detroit.

Valentin hit a two-run homer off Moore in the third before adding two-run singles in both the fourth and fifth. Mike Greenwell, Mo Vaughn and Troy O’Leary also hit home runs for Boston, which had 15 hits.

Zane Smith (6-6) won for the fourth time in his last six decisions. He went seven innings, giving up one run on five hits. Moore (5-11) lost his fifth start in a row and fell to 1-9 in his last 13 starts.

Chicago 4, Kansas City 3--Dave Righetti pitched into the eighth inning and Craig Grebeck scored a run and drove in another to lead the White Sox at Chicago.

Righetti (2-0) gave up two runs on six hits, walked two and struck out four in his third start. Roberto Hernandez pitched the ninth inning for his 18th save despite giving up a leadoff homer to Gary Gaetti, his 20th, to cut the lead to 4-3.

New York 7, Milwaukee 5--The Yankees overcame shaky pitching from two rookies, an inside-the-park homer by David Hulse and three blown leads to defeat the Brewers at New York.

The Brewers, who had three home runs among their seven hits, left 11 men on base and failed to take advantage of eight walks by rookies Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera (4-2).

It was the fifth loss in a row for Milwaukee, which held the wild-card spot last week but has dropped 2 1/2 games behind New York.

Oakland 4, Texas 3--Mike Aldrete scored Jason Giambi with a single in the bottom of the 11th inning to lead the Athletics to a come-from-behind victory at Oakland.

Texas took a 3-1 lead in the top of the inning on a two-run triple by Luis Ortiz that scored Ivan Rodriguez and Rusty Greer.