Indian Rookie Keeps Cool and Wins Debut

It seemed that everyone wanted to talk to rookie Paul Rigdon after he defeated the New York Yankees Sunday in his major league debut.

Especially his father.

“It’s awesome,” said Larry Rigdon, waiting near his son while he was being interviewed in the Cleveland Indians’ clubhouse. “I was a little apprehensive about him facing the Yankees.”

So were the Indians.

But Rigdon shut out the World Series champions, yielding only two hits in seven innings in his first major league start, leading the Indians to a 6-1 victory at Cleveland.

Rigdon, the first Cleveland pitcher since Luis Tiant in 1964 to make his first major league start against the Yankees, gave Cleveland only its second series win over New York at Jacobs Field.

“Unbelievable,” Rigdon said. “This was better than I ever imagined. Before the game I tried to visualize what I would do, but this was better. Unbelievable.”

Rigdon, a 24-year-old right-hander, was called up from triple-A Buffalo of the International League after the Indians put starters Jaret Wright and Charles Nagy and reliever Ricardo Rincon on the disabled list.

He was told Friday his debut would come against the Yankees.

“I was nervous,” he said. “But once I got out there and threw that first pitch to [Chuck] Knoblauch, I calmed down. My adrenaline is still flowing a little bit.”

Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez hit two-run homers off Orlando Hernandez (4-4) and Enrique Wilson’s inside-the-park homer helped the Indians take two of three from the Yankees.

“He kept his cool,” said Indian Manager Charlie Manuel. “He pitched a heck of a game.”

Rigdon did just what he said he’d try to do when he got word he was starting against the Yankees.

Primarily using his sinker and slider, Rigdon stayed ahead in the count and kept the ball low in the strike zone. He used both sides of the plate and let his defense do the rest.

“The guys behind me are great players, so I just let them to their jobs,” Rigdon said. “And anytime I got in trouble, I just remembered the guys that were behind me.”

The Yankees were the only ones in trouble.

With his dad, mother Penny and fiancee Diane in town from Jacksonville, Fla., Rigdon walked four and struck out two. He gave up a third-inning single to Knoblauch and a seventh-inning double to Jorge Posada.

“He made us put the ball in play,” said Paul O’Neill, who hit two hard comebackers that Rigdon fielded. “He threw strikes and they had a great defense behind him.”

Second baseman Roberto Alomar made a diving stop to take a hit away from Ricky Ledee, and twice after one-out walks, Rigdon got the Yankees to hit into inning-ending double plays.

After walking Ledee in the seventh to put two on, Alomar visited Rigdon on the mound.

“I just told him to slow down,” Alomar said. “I said give me sinkerball and a grounder. And I got it.”

Rigdon, who got 14 outs on grounders, got out of the seventh when Jim Leyritz bounced into a double play.

Detroit 7, Boston 5--Hideo Nomo won for the first time since opening day as the Tigers roughed up Ramon Martinez at Fenway Park.

The Tigers (14-26)--with the worst record in the league--won the final two games of the series. Detroit had previously swept the Yankees.

Nomo (2-3) gave up one run and five hits in 5 1/3 innings, striking out six. Nomo, who defeated the Oakland Athletics in the season opener, had three losses and five no decisions since then.

Martinez (3-3) gave up seven runs and six hits in 2 1/3 innings. It was the second shortest outing of the season for Martinez, who lasted only 1 1/3 innings in his first start of the year.

Chicago 2, Toronto 1-- Mark Johnson’s single with two outs in the third inning at Toronto was the only hit for the White Sox won for the sixth time in seven games. The Blue Jays, who have lost four straight games, made two errors in the seventh inning, leading to two unearned runs.

After Frank Castillo (2-3) walked Frank Thomas to open the seventh, Magglio Ordonez reached on second baseman Homer Bush’s error. Thomas took third on the play and scored on Tony Batista’s error at third base. Chris Singleton bunted Ordonez to third, and Carlos Lee hit a sacrifice fly for a 2-0 lead.

Seattle 8, Tampa Bay 4--Rickey Henderson hit a leadoff home run for the second consecutive day, helping the Mariners win at Seattle.

Henderson’s 77 leadoff home runs are a major league record.

Dan Wilson and Mike Cameron hit consecutive homers for Seattle and Edgar Martinez also homered for the Mariners.

Henderson has hit leadoff homers in back-to-back games three times in his career, having done it in 1993 and 1990 with Oakland. Baltimore’s Brady Anderson holds the record of four consecutive games with a leadoff homer in 1996.

Oakland 13, Minnesota 4--Tim Hudson pitched seven scoreless innings and Jason Giambi hit his fifth grand slam during an eight-run second inning at Oakland as the Athletics broke out of an offensive drought.

The homer was the league-leading 17th for Giambi, one behind St. Louis’ Mark McGwire for the major league lead.

The Athletics stopped their season-high losing streak at five games and prevented the Twins’ first four-game sweep in Oakland since 1993.

Oakland was batting only .131 in its last four games and had failed to score in 14 consecutive innings.

Texas 6, Baltimore 5--Pinch-hitter Frank Catalanotto hit a two-out, run-scoring single in the eighth inning at Arlington, Texas, to help the Rangers extend their winning streak to six games.

Ruben Mateo drew a leadoff walk off Buddy Groom (2-2) and was sacrificed to second by Mike Lamb. Catalanotto, hitting for Jason McDonald, singled to right to cap Texas’ comeback from a 5-0 deficit.

Rafael Palmeiro and Lamb homered for Texas and Mike Bordick hit one for the Orioles bringing the total for the day to 56, one shy of the major league record set April 7.