Clemens’ Streak Ends, His Prowess Doesn’t

Roger Clemens’ scoreless inning streak may have ended Saturday, but it was still a good night for the Toronto ace.

Facing his former team, Clemens gave up three hits in eight innings to remain undefeated since May 29 as the Blue Jays defeated the Boston Red Sox, 4-3, for their ninth consecutive victory.

Clemens (18-6) saw his team-record scoreless innings streak end at 33 when the Red Sox scored twice in the fifth.

But it wasn’t enough, as Clemens lowered his league-leading ERA to 2.62 and won his 13th consecutive decision.

By winning the first three games of the four-game series, the Blue Jays pulled within six games of the Red Sox, the AL wild-card leader. The Red Sox lost for the seventh time in 10 games.

“They’re not going to go down without a fight,” Clemens said of his former team. “We need to continue to push forward and make good things happen. There’s still a long way to go.”

Shawn Green, Carlos Delgado and Jose Canseco homered for the Blue Jays, and Tony Fernandez matched his career high with four hits.

“We can’t afford to drop one game to Boston. We have to win tomorrow,” Canseco said. “We got 20 games left and somehow we got to win 15 of those 20. Anything can happen.”

Clemens struck out 11 and walked three. It was his eighth double-digit strikeout game in 1998 and the 90th of his career. He leads the AL with 227 strikeouts and is tied for the lead with 18 wins.

With his recent spurt, he has put himself in position to win an unprecedented fifth Cy Young Award.

“I’m not to worried about that right now. That’s not my main concern,” Clemens said. “I just want to continue to finish up strong and do the things I’ve always tried to do.”

Bret Saberhagen (12-7) gave up three runs and eight hits in six innings. The runs came on homers by Green and Delgado in the first inning and Canseco in the second. It was Canseco’s 39th homer.

“I put us in a hole early, and with Roger Clemens on the mound you can’t afford to make mistakes,” Saberhagen said. “We’ll try to salvage the series tomorrow. We lost three, but if we win one, they only pick up two games.”

Boston’s two runs in the fifth came on Darrin Lewis’ RBI single and Clemens’ wild pitch with Mike Benjamin on third.

“He was within a pitch of shutout. A base hit and wild pitch and there’s two runs,” Toronto catcher Darrin Fletcher said.

Fletcher’s run-scoring single gave Toronto a 4-2 lead in the eighth, and Troy O’Leary hit a leadoff home run for Boston in the ninth.

Cleveland 5, Detroit 4--Omar Vizquel homered for the first time in almost a year as the Indians continued their dominance of the Tigers with a victory at Detroit.

All but one of the game’s runs scored on homers as Brian Giles and Richie Sexson also connected for the Indians and Juan Encarnacion and Paul Bako hit two-run shots for the Tigers.

Cleveland is 9-2 against Detroit this season, including 5-0 at Tiger Stadium, and the Indians are 37-10 against Detroit since the beginning of the 1995 season.

Vizquel had gone a major league-high 524 at-bats since his last homer on Sept. 15, 1997 before he connected for a solo shot off Sean Runyan that gave the Indians a 5-0 lead in the seventh. It came one out after Sexson hit a two-run blast against A.J. Sager for his eighth homer.

Dave Burba (13-9) gave up four runs on six hits in seven-plus innings.

Mike Jackson pitched the ninth for his 36th save.

Seattle 6, Baltimore 5--Ken Griffey Jr. hit his American League-leading 48th homer, a go-ahead, three-run shot in the eighth that led the Mariners past the Orioles at Seattle.

With Seattle trailing 5-2, Alex Rodriguez hit an RBI single off Armando Benitez (5-4) and Griffey followed with his first home run since Aug. 30 at New York. The ball went an estimated 429 feet over the center-field fence.

Benitez blew a save opportunity for the third time in 22 chances this season. The Orioles, who have faded from the wild-card race, have lost 13 of 15.

Rodriguez, seeking to join Jose Canseco and Barry Bonds as the third player with 40 homers and 40 stolen bases in a single season, got his 40th stolen base to go with 38 homers.

Oakland 3, Tampa Bay 0--Kenny Rogers scattered nine hits for his fifth career shutout and first in more than two years, leading the Athletics over the Devil Rays at Oakland.

Rickey Henderson connected for his 12th homer and A.J. Hinch added a sacrifice fly for Oakland, which stopped a six-game losing streak to the expansion Devil Rays.

Rogers (13-7) struck out six, including Fred McGriff four times, and walked none in his 22nd complete game, his fifth this year.

Acquired in a trade with New York prior to this season, Rogers improved to 10-0 with a 1.96 ERA in 16 starts at the Oakland Coliseum, the best home ERA in the AL.