Griffey Hits Two, Reaches 50

Hours after Mark McGwire hit his 61st homer, Ken Griffey Jr. homered twice in the Seattle Mariners’ 11-1 victory over the Baltimore Orioles on Monday at Seattle, giving major league baseball three players with 50 home runs in a season for the first time.

Griffey hit a 449-foot shot off Pete Smith in the fifth inning for his 49th homer, then hit his 10th career grand slam in the sixth off Jimmy Key, a line drive to left.

Griffey ran toward first base and pumped his right fist overhead when the ball cleared the wall.

“It was a grand slam and it was 50,” Griffey said. “It’s an achievement I’m very proud of.”

Griffey leads the AL and is third in the majors, trailing McGwire and the Chicago Cubs’ Sammy Sosa, who has 58.

Griffey said he wasn’t concerned that he wasn’t in the thick of the home run race between McGwire and Sosa.

“It doesn’t really bother me. What’s happening with Mark and Sammy is good for baseball,” he said.

Asked whether he could hit 61 home runs, Griffey said he doesn’t set goals.

“I don’t think about it,” Griffey said. “If you set goals, you have to reset them,” Griffey said. “I’ll just try and add onto what I have done.”

Griffey, who had 56 homers last year after hitting 49 in 1996, joined McGwire and Babe Ruth as the only players to hit 50 or more in consecutive seasons. Ruth did it in 1920-21 and 1927-28, and McGwire has hit 50 or more the last three years.

“It used to be 50 dingers would lead all of baseball,” Seattle Manager Lou Piniella said. “Now you have to hit in the 60s.”

Piniella was asked if Griffey needs to get stronger to keep up with McGwire and Sosa.

“He has more homers (106) in the past two seasons than I hit in my whole career,” said Piniella who hit 102 home runs. “He doesn’t need to get any bigger.”

Griffey also had a double and single and matched his career high with six RBIs.

Edgar Martinez and Alex Rodriguez hit two-run homers as the Mariners increased their major league-leading total to 213.

Toronto 15, Cleveland 1--Jose Canseco homered for the fourth consecutive game and Kelvim Escobar gave up four hits in eight innings at Toronto as the Blue Jays tied a club record with their 11th consecutive.

Shannon Stewart and Carlos Delgado also hit three-run homers for Toronto, which remained five games behind Boston in the wild-card race after sweeping four games from the Red Sox at SkyDome. Toronto hadn’t won 11 consecutive games since June 1987.

Escobar (5-2) struck out 10 and walked four. The 22-year-old right-hander has given up just nine earned runs in 51 1/3 innings in his first seven major-league starts.

Canseco hit a three-run homer, his 41st, off Chad Ogea (4-3) to give Toronto a 4-0 lead in the second inning.

Stewart, who went four for six with a career-high four RBIs, hit an inside the park home run in the third. He hit a liner to right that bounced past Manny Ramirez and rolled to the wall. Stewart ran through third base coach Eddie Rodriguez’s stop sign and slid home safely for Toronto’s seventh run.

Delgado, who went three for five, hit his 29th home run in the seventh to extend Toronto’s lead to 14-1.

Boston 4, New York 3--John Valentin hit a go-ahead homer in the eighth inning off David Wells as the Red Sox rallied at Boston.

Valentin’s homer, which capped a comeback from a three-run deficit, barely made it into the center-field bleachers. It appeared a fan may have reached over the fence to pull the ball into the stands, but there was no protest by the Yankees.

It was Valentin’s 20th homer and the 29th given up by Wells (17-3), who struck out 10 and walked none.

The loss was the 11th in 19 games for the Yankees, whose magic number for clinching the AL East championship is three.

Chicago 7, Detroit 5--Albert Belle hit his 45th home run, his 27th since the All-Star break, at Chicago.

Frank Thomas, Robin Ventura and Magglio Ordonez also homered for the White Sox, who have won 11 of their last 14. The Tigers have lost seven of 10 and are 2-5 since Larry Parrish replaced Buddy Bell as manager.

Jim Parque (6-5) allowed three runs and nine hits in 5 2/3 innings, and Chad Bradford got three consecutive outs for his first career save.