Dye’s Homer Completes a Big Day for the Royals

The day was memorable for the Kansas City Royals even before it began. And then they came back with one of their more memorable wins of the 1990s.

As George Brett made his Hall of Fame induction speech in Cooperstown, N.Y., the Royals trailed the Oakland Athletics, 11-5, in the sixth inning at Kansas City.

Then they rallied to send the game into extra innings, and Jermaine Dye hit a two-run homer in the 10th to give Kansas City a 13-11 victory.

“With all the excitement surrounding George getting inducted and all the fans who stayed at the ballpark rooting us on, it made it even more special for us to come back,” Dye said.

John Jaha homered twice and drove in five runs for the Athletics.

Joe Randa hit a three-run homer in the third off Blake Stein that tied the score at 5-5 and added a two-run shot off Billy Taylor in the ninth that pulled the Royals to within 11-10. The five RBIs were a career high.

Jaha’s grand slam, which put Oakland ahead, 10-5, came off Brian Barber after Dan Reichert walked the first three batters of the fourth. Miguel Tejada hit a go-ahead sacrifice fly and Ben Grieve walked, setting up the slam.

Seattle 4, Minnesota 3--Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr. hit back-to-back home runs at Minneapolis to help the Mariners stop a three-game losing streak.

Rodriguez hit his 22nd homer in the first and Griffey followed with his American League-leading 32nd.

Griffey has homered in five of six games this year at the Metrodome, where he has 22 homers, most in any ballpark other than the Kingdome.

New York 2, Cleveland 1--After striking out in his first three at-bats, Ricky Ledee homered in the ninth inning to give the Yankees a three-game sweep of the Indians at Yankee Stadium.

The victory was the sixth in a row for the Yankees.

Ramiro Mendoza (4-6), got the last four out for the victory in relief of Roger Clemens, who had one of the best outings of a subpar season, giving up one run in seven innings.

Toronto 11, Chicago 3--Chris Carpenter (7-5) shut down the White Sox on two hits in eight innings and Shawn Green hit a three-run homer that extended his hitting streak to 23 games to lead the Blue Jays at Chicago.

Toronto, which has won eight of nine, moved one game ahead of Boston in the AL wild-card race.

Detroit 9, Boston 1--In a game at Detroit between two of the league’s charter members, the Tigers beat the Red Sox for the 500th time.

Tony Clark hit two homers and drove in four runs and Dave Mlicki (5-9) yielded six hits, struck out five and walked one.

Texas 4, Tampa Bay 3--John Wetteland got his major league-leading 29th save by striking out Aaron Ledesma and Rich Butler with the tying run on third in the ninth inning at St. Petersburg, Fla.

The Rangers have won eight in a row and are 10-1 since the All-Star break. They also improved to 18 games over .500 (58-40) for the first time since the end of the 1996 season.