Indians Have Wright Stuff Against Tigers

Jaret Wright pitched a three-hitter for his first career shutout as the Cleveland Indians continued their domination of the Tigers with a 2-0 victory Monday at Detroit.

Manny Ramirez homered for the Indians, who are 3-0 against Detroit this year and 39-11 since the start of the 1994 season.

“There are times you come out of the pen [after warmups] feeling good,” said Wright, an Orange County native. “Tonight was one of those times.”

The Indians have won 13 of their last 17 games overall and eight of their last nine on the road.

Wright (4-3) won his third consecutive decision, striking out seven and walking three. The only hits he gave up were a bloop single to Tony Clark in the second, a fifth-inning double by Frank Catalanotto and Paul Bako’s bad-hop single in the eighth.

“It’s my first complete game, my first complete shutout game and it feels good,” said Wright, 3-0 with a 1.47 earned-run average in his last four starts. “I think I’m throwing the ball relatively well right now and hopefully we can just go from there.”

Tampa Bay 4, Texas 1--Rookie Rolando Arrojo, a former Cuban national team standout, gave up four hits, struck out a season-high nine and walked one in seven innings at St. Petersburg, to win his eighth game, reaching the mark faster than any pitcher for a first-year expansion team.

“You couldn’t ask for a better effort,” Tampa Bay Manager Larry Rothschild said. “He’s done it against good teams. He’s done it against about everybody.”

Quinton McCracken had his eighth three-hit game of the season, including a three-run homer that broke up a scoreless pitching duel between Arrojo (8-3) and John Burkett (3-5) in the fifth inning.

By getting his eighth victory in Tampa Bay’s 55th game, Arrojo became the quickest pitcher to get that many during a team’s inaugural season.

“I’m not going to put him in the Hall of Fame tonight,” Texas Manager Johnny Oates said of Arrojo. “I might vote him rookie of the year, but I want to see him pitch two or three more times. . . He threw the ball very well, and looked like he had a good idea of what he wanted to do.”

New York 5, Chicago 4--Tim Raines scored from first base on Chad Curtis’ double with two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning as the Yankees ended a two-game losing streak at New York.

New York third-base coach Willie Randolph waved Raines around on Curtis’ hit and he scored sliding into the plate when shortstop Mike Caruso’s relay throw slipped through catcher Chad Kreuter’s legs.

“It’s one of those plays, where if everything happens right, there’s no way that I’m going to score,” Raines said. “I knew before I got to third that Albert [Belle] had gotten the ball to the cutoff man.”

Raines initially missed the plate with an awkward slide before reaching back to touch it as the Yankees came out of the dugout to mob him.

Tino Martinez had three hits, including a two-run homer, and Jorge Posada and Chad Curtis also homered for the Yankees.

Boston 9, Toronto 5--Nomar Garciaparra hit a tiebreaking home run off Randy Myers in the ninth inning at Toronto as the “tired” Red Sox gained their third consecutive win.

The Red Sox didn’t get much rest Sunday night because bad weather in New York delayed their flight for more than 12 hours.

“The fatigue was there, but we were all in the same boat,” Garciaparra said. “We weren’t going to make any excuses. We could have easily have shut it down today and said whatever, but we battled.”

Carlos Delgado hit two homers and drove in four runs for Toronto.

Oakland 8, Minnesota 5--Matt Stairs hit a go-ahead, two-run home run in the sixth inning and the Athletics’ bullpen preserved the win at Minneapolis.

With Oakland trailing, 4-3, Stairs hit the first pitch from rookie Eric Milton (3-5) for a homer to put the Athletics ahead, 5-4. The A’s made the score 6-4 in the eighth on Mike Macfarlane’s homer and added two runs in the ninth on Scott Spiezio’s homer and Stairs’ run-scoring single. Spiezio finished with three hits and three RBIs.

Despite allowing a runner to reach scoring position in each of the first five innings, Mike Oquist (2-3) got the victory on nine hits over 5 2/3 innings.

Buddy Groom and Mike Fetters each pitched a scoreless inning of relief, and Billy Taylor got the final four outs for his ninth save in 10 attempts.