Nieves Switches On the Power Again

Melvin Nieves homered from both sides of the plate for the second time this season Tuesday night as the Tigers ended an eight-game losing streak by outslugging Chicago, 16-11, at Detroit.

“I’ve been struggling a little bit with breaking pitches, but I haven’t lost any bat speed,” said Nieves, who has 19 homers in only 85 games because of three stints on the disabled list. “I just want to take advantage of what’s working now and try to bring it all back together.”

Nieves drove in a career-high five runs for the Tigers, who also got home runs from Andujar Cedeno and Bobby Higginson.

Tony Phillips, Robin Ventura, Danny Tartabull and Frank Thomas homered for the White Sox, who lost for the first time in nine meetings against the Tigers this season. Chicago had won a club-record 10 in a row against the Tigers over the past two seasons.

Nieves hit a three-run homer left-handed against Chicago starter Kevin Tapani (11-8) in the first inning and added a two-run homer, his 19th, batting right-handed against Rich Sauveur in the sixth.

Nieves also homered from both sides July 15 at Milwaukee. New York Met catcher Todd Hundley is the only other player to homer from each side in two games this year.

Cleveland 10, Texas 4--Albert Belle hit his 41st homer, Jim Thome hit his 28th and Manny Ramirez had his third grand slam of the season in the Indians’ victory at Cleveland.

Belle had a solo homer in the eighth to give him a major-league leading 118 runs batted in.

Juan Gonzalez hit his 36th home run for Texas.

In a game delayed more than an hour by rain, Texas saw its American League errorless streak end at 15 games.

Minnesota 12, Milwaukee 7--Marty Cordova hit two home runs in a game for the first time and matched a career high with four runs batted in at Minneapolis.

Cordova hit a solo homer during a six-run second inning and a two-run homer in the three-run fourth as Milwaukee lost at the Metrodome for the first time in six games this season.

Scott Stahoviak also homered and Paul Molitor had three hits, leaving him 38 short of 3,000. Rich Becker, Dave Hollins and Matt Lowton also had three hits each as Minnesota set a season high with 20 hits.

Baltimore 4, Seattle 1--Mike Mussina gave up only two hits over seven innings to win his fifth consecutive start as the Orioles won before 47,679, the largest crowd of the season at Baltimore’s Camden Yards.

Mussina (16-8) struck out eight, matching his season high, and walked four.

Mussina is 5-0 with a 3.03 earned run average in his five starts since July 26.

Boston 4, Oakland 3--Mo Vaughn hit a three-run homer in the eighth as the Red Sox rallied at Boston for their 15th victory in 20 games.

Boston moved two games below .500 for the first time since losing the first two games of the season en route to a franchise-worst 2-12 start.

Rich Garces (3-2) earned the victory with one inning of scoreless relief and Heathcliff Slocumb pitched the ninth for his 21st save.

Toronto 6, Kansas City 5--Alex Gonzalez homered on the first pitch of the 14th inning for the game-deciding blow at Kansas City.

Gonzalez’s ninth homer came against Rick Huisman (0-1), the eighth Royal pitcher and last available reliever.

Huisman also gave up a 13th-inning homer to Carlos Delgado. Craig Paquette’s run-scoring single in the bottom of the inning tied the game for Kansas City.