A’s Will Be Glad When They’re Leaving Las Vegas

The Oakland Athletics are still throwing snake eyes in Las Vegas.

Melvin Nieves’ bloop single in the 15th inning Thursday gave the Detroit Tigers a 10-9 victory after they had blown a seven-run lead.

Travis Fryman of the Tigers and Scott Brosius of the A’s each homered twice. Bobby Higginson also connected for Detroit, even though the wind was blowing in at 23 mph at Cashman Field, a minor-league park that is the Athletics’ temporary home this week because of $100 million in renovations at the Oakland Coliseum.

“We need to win a game, period,” Brosius said. “We’ve battled real well these last three days, but we just need something positive to put some smiles on our faces.”

The five homers brought the total to 13 in three games so far at Cashman Field.

The A’s have been outscored, 29-19, in their three losses in Las Vegas and have three more games there this weekend against Detroit.

Higginson, who had a three-run homer and three other hits, singled with one out in the 15th inning off Aaron Small. It was the Tigers’ first hit since the eighth.

Higginson moved to second on a passed ball, Cecil Fielder walked with two outs and Nieves singled on a 3-and-0 pitch for the go-ahead run.

Phil Plantier, traded from Detroit to Oakland two weeks ago, had drawn a bases-loaded walk in the ninth to tie the game, 9-9.

Greg Keagle earned his first major league win by pitching the final three innings, striking out four.

Baltimore 5, Kansas City 3--Cal Ripken’s double tied the score, Tony Tarasco’s fielder’s choice grounder broke it and Jeffrey Hammonds’ RBI single gave the Orioles their fifth run of the eighth inning of a victory at home.

Kansas City’s Chris Haney took a five-hit shutout into the eighth, but he never got another out. The Orioles sent 10 men to the plate in the inning against three Kansas City pitchers, all of whom yielded at least one hit.

Arthur Rhodes (1-0) pitched two scoreless innings and Randy Myers worked the ninth for his second save, completing the Orioles’ first three-game sweep of the Royals since 1992.

Baltimore hasn’t started a season with three consecutive wins since 1985.

Texas 13, Boston 2--Kevin Gross pitched seven strong innings and the Rangers took advantage of four errors to win at Arlington, Texas, and finish a three-game season-opening sweep.

Mark McLemore went three for three, with a sacrifice fly and a stolen base, and Juan Gonzalez hit a three-run homer for the Rangers, who finished with 16 hits and drew 10 walks from Tim Wakefield and four relievers.

Red Sox newcomer Wil Cordero, shifted from shortstop to second base this season, made two errors that figured in three runs.

Gross was 9-15 last year with a 5.54 ERA, but got off to a good start by limiting Boston to one run and four hits. He struck out four and walked four.

Wakefield lasted 4 2/3 innings and gave up seven runs on nine hits and five walks.

Cordero’s second-inning error on Ivan Rodriguez’s ground ball brought in one run, and his error in the fifth inning allowed two more runs across. In that inning, Texas scored four times on one hit.