Ripken Milestone Not Enough for Orioles

While Cal Ripken Jr. became the Baltimore Orioles’ career hit leader, Friday’s game against the Cleveland Indians may best be remembered as the game the Orioles’ flickering wild-card hopes took a damaging blow.

Jaret Wright stymied the Orioles for the second time in a week as the Indians took some of Ripken’s spotlight with a 5-3 victory at Baltimore.

The loss, combined with Boston’s rout of Minnesota, left the Orioles eight games behind the Red Sox in the wild-card chase, the same deficit Baltimore faced exactly one month ago.

Ripken grounded an opposite-field single to right in the seventh inning for his 2,849th career hit, eclipsing the Oriole franchise record held by Brooks Robinson.

Ripken received a lengthy standing ovation from the sellout crowd of 48,374, the largest to attend a regular-season game in the seven-year history of the ballpark.

“The ovation I got from the crowd was unbelievable, but it’s hard to get real happy when we don’t win,” Ripken said.

Still, Ripken couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride in breaking the record of a player he grew up idolizing.

“This is just another of the things that you didn’t expect to happen,” he said. “But when you play a long time, you get some hits and inch your way up the list and all of a sudden you’ve passed Brooks. It makes you feel good just knowing my personal feeling about the Orioles that they’re my team, always been my team.”

Rafael Palmeiro and Willie Greene homered for the Orioles, who lost consecutive games for the first time in August. Baltimore is 30-10 since the All-Star break but 3-3 in its last six games.

Wright (11-7) gave up three runs and five hits in 6 2/3 innings, walking two and striking out three.

“He was throwing 98 miles an hour, using sharp breaking balls and mixing pitches really well,” Ripken said. “He has great stuff to begin with and he really had it going on.”

Wright received a hand from Kenny Lofton, who reached far over the center-field wall to steal a homer from Roberto Alomar in the sixth.

“It was a big time catch,” Indian Manager Mike Hargrove said. “I don’t know, a lot of people might have made that catch but they don’t come to mind. Jabbar? Kareem Jabbar or Randy Johnson. He really got up.”

The Indians took command with a four-run third against Scott Kamieniecki (2-6), who is 0-4 with a 6.75 ERA in five starts since returning from the disabled list July 25.

Kansas City 6, Tampa Bay 5--After rallying for two runs in the ninth to tie, the Royals got RBIs from Johnny Damon and Hal Morris in the 11th inning as they defeated the Devil Rays at St. Petersburg, Fla.

Damon hit a one-out single off second baseman Miguel Cairo’s glove and Morris added a sacrifice fly.

Matt Whisenant (2-1) worked a scoreless 10th inning for the win. Jeff Montgomery pitched the 11th for his 27th save, giving up a run on doubles by Randy Winn and Cairo.

For the Devil Rays, Fred McGriff became the sixth player to hit a fair ball off the overhanging catwalk, which supports a bank of lights 100 feet above the playing field. The two-out shot off Tim Belcher was McGriff’s 14th homer this year and only his eighth since April.

Tampa Bay starter Julio Santana didn’t give up a hit until Dean Palmer connected for his 28th homer leading off the fifth. Palmer broke his bat on the homer with a piece of it landing near the pitcher’s mound.

Boston 9, Minnesota 2--In his first game at the Metrodome since the 1991 World Series, Steve Avery pitched a season-high seven innings to lead the Red Sox.

Damon Buford and Nomar Garciaparra each hit three-run homers, and Mo Vaughn drove in two runs for the Red Sox. Four Twin pitchers helped the Red Sox with eight walks and two wild pitches.

Avery (9-5) gave up four hits, walked three and struck out one. He lost to the Twins last Sunday when he was tagged for six runs and nine hits in three innings.

Minnesota rookie starter Eric Milton (7-10) gave up one hit and three runs but walked five in 1 2/3 innings.

The Twins have lost 15 of 20 in August.

Garciaparra’s shot gave him 100 RBIs and made him only the fifth Boston shortstop to reach the plateau.

Oakland 4, Detroit 2--Tony Clark and Juan Encarnacion hit home runs for the Tigers, but it wasn’t enough as Mike Oquist won for the first time in more than a month with six strong innings at home.

Oquist (7-10) snapped his five-game losing streak and registered his first win since July 13.

He struck out two and walked none while giving up six hits and defeated the Tigers for the first time in nine lifetime outings.

The A’s got to Bryce Florie (6-7) for three runs in the first inning and then hung on for only their second victory in eight meetings with the Tigers this season.

Seattle 5, Chicago 4--The Mariners hit home runs for the first time in five games and Russ Davis delivered an RBI double in the eighth inning to defeat White Sox at Seattle.

The Mariners got home runs from Jay Buhner and Edgar Martinez to take a 4-3 lead. Seattle leads the majors with 188 homers.

Albert Belle hit his 38th homer for the White Sox, tying it in the seventh against Jeff Fassero.

After Buhner walked with one out in the eighth against Keith Foulke (3-2), Davis lined a shot high off the fence in right field. Davis was thrown out trying to stretch the hit into a triple.

Jose Paniagua (1-0) earned the win in relief and Mike Timlin pitched the ninth for his 11th save.

Ken Griffey Jr. went 0 for 4 and remained stuck on 42 home runs. He has only one in his last 20 games, a stretch of 81 at-bats.

Fassero remained winless since July 25, giving up six hits and four runs, two unearned, in seven innings.

Scott Eyre started for the White Sox in place of the injured James Baldwin and left a 3-3 game after 85 pitches in 4 1/3 innings.

Jaime Navarro came in and immediately surrendered a go-ahead homer to Martinez.