Coomer Helps Twins End Drought

Ron Coomer made sure the Minnesota Twins wouldn’t go winless against the Texas Rangers again this year.

Coomer had two homers and a career-high seven runs batted in Friday night as the Twins beat the Rangers, 10-5, at Arlington, Texas, for their first victory against Texas since 1998.

Minnesota, which has won four in a row, lost all 12 games against the Rangers in 1999, and 13 in a row in the series since September 1998.

“They were just better than we were, but you’d think you could mix one win in there somewhere,” Twin Manager Tom Kelly said. “Hopefully that won’t be the only one we win this year.”

Coomer hit a two-run homer in the third inning to tie the score at 3-3 and added a three-run shot in the ninth. He added an RBI single in a three-run sixth that put the Twins ahead to stay, and then drove in another run on a groundout an inning later.

“That’s a good day, isn’t it? At least it’s a good day for me,” Coomer said after a lengthy postgame stay in the training room for treatment, an almost nightly occurrence these days as he plays despite an injured knee and foot.

“Our team stayed in the game. We got guys on base and hit the ball well and good things happened,” he said. “You have to score runs against Texas because they have such a great team they can score at any time.”

But Texas, swept in a three-game series against the New York Yankees earlier this week, has lost five in a row for the first time since July 12-16, 1998. The Rangers blew a 3-0 first-inning lead, and then failed to hold on after going ahead, 5-3, in the fifth.

“It’s been a rough five days. A lot of things are going to have to change, including the manager,” Texas Manager Johnny Oates said. “The bottom line is we’re not playing very well. We’re not getting hits at crucial times.”

Toronto 8, New York 3--Chris Carpenter rebounded from the worst start of his career to stop the Yankees’ eight-game winning streak

Carpenter (1-3), who lost his first three starts, pitched a five-hitter for his seventh complete game, striking out three and walking none at Toronto.

Last Sunday, he gave up a career-high eight runs in 3 1/3 innings against the Seattle Mariners, then had a 15-minute meeting with Manager Jim Fregosi.

The Yankees, who at 11-4 have baseball’s best record, were on their longest winning streak since taking nine in a row from Aug. 7-14, 1998.

After taking a perfect game into the seventh inning against the Kansas City Royals last weekend, Ramiro Mendoza (1-1) gave up six runs and seven hits in four innings.

Carlos Delgado, Alex Gonzalez and Raul Mondesi each drove in two runs for the Blue Jays, who have won four of six. Toronto won only two of 12 games against the Yankees last season.

Chicago 7, Detroit 2--Frank Thomas homered and the White Sox used a five-run fifth inning at Chicago to send the Tigers to their fifth consecutive loss.

The Tigers, shut out in their previous two games, ended a scoreless streak of 24 innings with a first-inning run, but lost for the 11th time in 15 games, the worst record in the American League.

Kip Wells (1-2), in his fourth start this season, finally got his first victory. He gave up a solo homer to Juan Encarnacion and yielded seven hits in 6 1/3 innings with two walks and five strikeouts.

An error by shortstop Deivi Cruz got the White Sox’s big inning rolling. Josh Paul doubled to start the fifth and scored when Cruz hit him with his throw to third after fielding Ray Durham’s grounder.

Walks to Jose Valentin and Thomas loaded the bases and finished C.J. Nitkowski (1-3) in favor of Matt Anderson. Magglio Ordonez then hit a hopper to short that went for an RBI infield single when Cruz couldn’t handle the ball. Chris Singleton followed with a two-run single and Carlos Lee hit a sacrifice fly to make the score 7-2.

Baltimore 11, Oakland 9--Cal Ripken Jr. homered and singled to drive in four runs as the Orioles, after nearly blowing an eight-run lead, hung on at Oakland.

Mike Bordick, the Orioles’ No. 9 hitter, had two RBIs to take over the league lead with 22.

Sidney Ponson (2-0), who had a four-hit shutout at Minnesota in his previous outing, followed up with a solid 5 2/3 innings, giving up three runs on six hits.

Mike Timlin got three outs for his first save, only the second for Baltimore’s bullpen in its last five chances.

Cleveland at Boston, ppd. rain--Pedro Martinez of the Red Sox, who was scheduled to start Thursday night at Detroit, was rained out for the second consecutive game. Friday’s game will be made up during the Indians’ next visit to Boston, scheduled for Sept. 19-21.