Rangers Get the Breaks in Beating Clemens, 4-2

The breaks finally seem to be going the Texas Rangers’ way in their house of horrors at Yankee Stadium.

The Rangers turned two line drives by Chili Davis into five outs and scored the winning run against Roger Clemens on a ball that didn’t even make it halfway up the third-base line Thursday night to beat the New York Yankees, 4-2, at New York.

“Sometimes you think you’ve seen every combination,” Ranger Manager Johnny Oates said. “You look out there tonight and see Chili hit two balls the way he did and end up with five outs. Then we score the winning run with a ball that didn’t go 45 feet.”

Those were the type of breaks that went against Texas recently at Yankee Stadium. They had lost seven in a row in the Bronx and 21 of 29 overall to the Yankees before winning, 3-0, behind Rick Helling on Wednesday night.

“We’re not going throw this one back,” Oates said. “Things happened to go our way tonight.”

On a night when Clemens had 13 strikeouts--including 10 in the first four innings--the Rangers managed nine hits, four in the infield, and three runs in seven innings against the Rocket.

Clemens (6-2), who had his best stuff since the Yankees acquired him this spring, lost for the second time in three starts after not losing a decision for more than a year.

Seattle 4, Detroit 3--David Segui hit a two-run triple in the ninth inning to cap a Mariner rally at Detroit.

With Detroit leading, 2-1, reliever C.J. Nitkowski walked Ken Griffey Jr. to start the ninth. Todd Jones (1-2) came on and gave up a single to Butch Huskey that put Griffey on third when right-fielder Bobby Higginson bobbled the ball for an error.

Segui followed with a drive to the right-field gap that scored both runners. He then scored on David Bell’s one-out squeeze bunt.

Chicago 9, Baltimore 3--Paul Konerko hit the first grand slam of his career, Magglio Ordonez and Chris Singleton also homered for the White Sox and the Orioles committed five errors at Chicago. The loss ended the Orioles’ seven-game winning streak.

Minnesota 8, Boston 7--Jacque Jones had a tiebreaking two-run double and went three for five to help the Twins avert a four-game sweep at Boston.

Cleveland 10, Oakland 6--Pinch-hitter Jim Thome doubled in the go-ahead run in a five-run seventh inning, and Roberto Alomar had four runs batted in for the Indians at Cleveland.