AL ROUNDUP : Boston Wins With Good, Bad Pitching

The Boston Red Sox followed up their most dominating pitching performance of the year with one of their worst. Both were good enough to beat the New York Yankees.

Nomar Garciaparra hit two of five homers for the Red Sox but they nearly blew a pair of five-run leads before holding on for an 11-10 victory Saturday, cutting the Yankees’ lead to 4 1/2 games in the American League East.

“Last night I said, ‘I saw pitching like I’ve never seen,’ ” Red Sox Manager Jimy Williams said. “[Today] I saw pitching like I’ve never seen.”

One day after winning, 3-1, behind Pedro Martinez’s 17-strikeout, one-hit gem, the Red Sox held on in a game that featured 21 runs, 16 walks and 349 pitches.

“This was just a hitter’s day,” said Rod Beck, who pitched a scoreless ninth for his second save.

Troy O’Leary, Trot Nixon and Butch Huskey also homered for Boston, which improved to 7-4 against New York to clinch the season series.

Meanwhile, Red Sox relief ace Tom Gordon pitched one scoreless inning for the double-A Trenton Thunder in his first rehab outing since going on the disabled list in June.

Oakland 5, Tampa Bay 4--Doug Jones recorded his 300th save with help from defensive replacement Jason McDonald at St. Petersburg, Fla., as the Athletics kept pace in the wild-card race.

Matt Stairs and Jason Giambi hit two-run doubles as Oakland remained three games behind Boston.

With two out in the ninth, McDonald--inserted as a defensive replacement--made a diving catch in left field on Jose Guillen’s liner with a runner on second.

Kansas City 9, Texas 6--Sal Fasano hit a pair of two-run homers for the Royals at Kansas City, Mo., handing Rick Helling his first loss in almost three months.

Fasano, called up from triple-A Omaha on Sept. 1, had his first multi-homer game. He had a 406-foot shot in the second inning and a 425-foot drive in the fifth.

Helling (13-8) had won his last four starts and a career-best seven consecutive decisions. But Kansas City tagged him for a season-high eight runs and nine hits in 4 1/3 innings.

Toronto 9, Detroit 5--Tony Batista homered and drove in three runs at Detroit as the Blue Jays ended a losing streak at four games.

The victory kept Toronto 6 1/2 games behind Boston in the wild-card race.

Cleveland 4, Chicago 3--Dave Burba won his sixth consecutive decision, Richie Sexson homered and the Indians overcame the loss of major league RBI leader Manny Ramirez at Chicago.

Ramirez, who has 144 RBIs, left in the first inning with a bruised right knee after being hit by a pitch from Jim Parque. His status is day-to-day.

Baltimore 4, Seattle 2--Eugene Kingsale’s two-run single broke an eighth-inning tie at Baltimore and Cal Ripken moved within 20 hits of 3,000 as the Orioles won their fifth consecutive game.