Bonderman Stops A’s for Tigers’ Second Win

Rookie Jeremy Bonderman retired 17 consecutive batters for his first major league win and the Detroit Tigers beat the Oakland Athletics, 4-1, Wednesday night at Oakland for only their second victory in 19 games.

Craig Monroe hit a two-run homer for the Tigers, whose only other victory was against the Chicago White Sox on April 12. They still are off to the worst 19-game start in club history.

Bonderman (1-3), traded to the Tigers by Oakland last year, was dominating as Detroit stopped its losing streak at eight games in unlikely circumstances: on the road against Barry Zito, who lost for only the second time in his last 32 starts at Network Associates Coliseum.

Bonderman gave up only three hits in eight innings, striking out five in his fourth major league start.

After consecutive singles by Jermaine Dye and Terrence Long in the second, Bonderman retired every batter he faced until Long’s one-out triple in the eighth. Ramon Hernandez drove home Long with a groundout.

Seattle 4, Cleveland 0 -- Gil Meche tied his career high with eight strikeouts in 7 2/3 innings and John Olerud hit his first homer to lead the Mariners at Seattle.

Meche (2-1) yielded five hits -- all singles -- and walked two. It was the longest major league start for the 24-year-old right-hander, who sat out the 2001 season after two major shoulder operations.

Texas 6, Boston 1 -- Ryan Christenson hit a leadoff homer in the bottom of the first inning, Juan Gonzalez had a two-run single and John Thomson pitched seven strong innings for his first American League victory.

Thomson (1-2) gave up one run and six hits in winning for the first time since last Sept. 8 for the New York Mets against Philadelphia.

Baltimore 7, Chicago 1 -- Jason Johnson pitched six innings of one-hit ball and Jeff Conine hit a three-run homer at Baltimore.

Johnson (3-0) was replaced in the seventh after issuing a leadoff walk to Magglio Ordonez and going to a 2-0 count on Paul Konerko. Kerry Ligtenberg then gave up two hits in two innings and Willis Roberts worked the ninth to finish the three-hitter.

Tampa Bay 4, Toronto 3 -- Rookie Rocco Baldelli hit a go-ahead RBI single during a four-run eighth inning at St. Petersburg, Fla.

The Blue Jays dropped to 7-15, their worst start since 1979. Toronto starter Mark Hendrickson carried a four-hit shutout into the eighth.

Minnesota at Kansas City -- The game was rained out and will be made up June 16, a scheduled off day for both teams. With several hours of heavy rain in the forecast, the game never began and was called after a nine-minute delay.