Griffey Hits 44th Homer in Win

Ken Griffey Jr. has been unusually quiet at the plate and the Seattle Mariners’ bullpen has been unusually effective the last few weeks. They were in their old form Monday.

Griffey hit his American League-leading 44th home run and the Mariners survived rocky relief pitching to complete a four-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox with an 11-10 victory at Seattle.

“That was a wild one, wasn’t it?” said Seattle Manager Lou Piniella, who saw three relievers give up seven runs over the last two innings.

Seattle starter Ken Cloude (8-9) left after seven innings with a 9-3 lead. But Bob Wells, Jose Paniagua and Mike Timlin conspired to give back three runs in the eighth.

The Mariners seemed to receive two insurance runs in the eighth when Chicago reliever Jaime Navarro threw consecutive run-scoring wild pitches increase Seattle’s lead to 11-6.

But Timlin loaded the bases on three singles--two that never left the infield--with no outs. Robin Ventura followed with his 10th career grand slam to pull the White Sox within one.

“You’ve got to keep scrapping and hopefully you get some breaks,” Ventura said. “I don’t try and do that. It just happens. That is what I call luck.”

Kansas City 7, Toronto 3--Rookie Brian Barber bounced back from a disastrous start and Sal Fasano homered at Toronto as the Royals won their season-high fifth game in a row.

After giving up eight earned runs in only 1 2/3 innings against Boston in his last start, his first major league appearance since 1996, Barber (1-1) held the Blue Jays to one earned run on three hits before leaving with one out in the seventh.

The 25-year-old right-hander struck out a career-high eight and walked two.

Texas 6, Detroit 5--Aaron Sele earned his 15th victory and Will Clark hit a two-run homer at Arlington, Texas as the Rangers entered a favorable stretch of the schedule. Their next 17 games are against sub-.500 clubs: Detroit, the Chicago White Sox, Minnesota, Kansas City and Tampa Bay.

The Angels kept their 2 1/2-game lead over the Rangers in the AL West by defeating the Yankees.