A Grand Time for 6-0 Royals

Dee Brown and the Kansas City Royals keep winning. No such luck for the Detroit Tigers.

Brown hit his first career grand slam and Brent Mayne had a three-run home run to help the Royals defeat the Tigers, 9-6, Wednesday at Detroit.

The 6-0 start is the best in Royal history.

“I’m not surprised we’re winning, but I don’t like talking about it,” Brown said.

“Just keep playing and doing what we’ve got to do.”

At 0-7, Detroit became only the second team in major league history to start successive seasons with at least seven consecutive losses. The Tigers were 0-11 last year.

The New York Mets started 0-9 in 1962 and 0-8 in 1963.

Jeremy Affeldt (1-0) gave up five runs, five hits and struck out six in 5 2/3 innings.

Oakland 13, Texas 5 -- Miguel Tejada, Scott Hatteberg, Terrence Long and Mark Ellis homered to support Mark Mulder (1-0) at Arlington, Texas, and give the Athletics their ninth consecutive victory over the Rangers.

Rafael Palmeiro of the Rangers hit his 493rd homer, tying Lou Gehrig for 19th on the career list.

New York 2, Minnesota 1 -- Mike Mussina (2-0) didn’t give up an earned run in eight innings at New York and the Yankees defeated the Twins for the 19th time in 21 meetings.

Jorge Posada and Raul Mondesi homered to give the Yankees 19 home runs in their first eight games, one short of the American League record. The Yankees set the record in 1932 and Seattle matched it five years ago.

Cleveland 5, Chicago 2 -- Brian Anderson (2-0) won his first appearance with the Indians at Jacobs Field since the 1997 World Series.

Only 14,841 -- the smallest crowd in the stadium’s 10-year history -- attended in near-freezing temperatures. It was the fewest fans to see an Indian home game since Sept. 20, 1993, at Cleveland Stadium.

Toronto 10, Boston 5 -- Vernon Wells hit a grand slam and the host Blue Jays rallied for their fifth consecutive victory.

Mike Bordick doubled twice and drove in three runs for the Blue Jays. Manny Ramirez extended his career-high hitting streak to 22 games with a three-run homer for the Red Sox, who have lost three of four.

Tampa Bay 10, Baltimore 7 -- Rocco Baldelli hit a tiebreaking triple in the seventh inning at St. Petersburg, Fla.

Tampa Bay trailed by four runs in the second inning and three in the fifth. Al Levine (1-0), called up from triple-A Durham before the game, worked 2 2/3 scoreless innings.

Tony Batista hit two homers for the Orioles.