AMERICAN LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Brewers Tighten the Wild-Card Race With Victory Over Twins

There were so many big hits in Milwaukee’s 14-7 victory over Minnesota that Brewer Manager Phil Garner had trouble singling out one as the key blow.

The Brewers had a season-high 18 hits Sunday at Milwaukee, including home runs by B.J. Surhoff and Dave Nilsson, to win their fifth game in a row and move within half a game of Texas in the race to be the wild-card team in the playoffs.

“I am thrilled with the game,” Garner said. “We had a couple big two-out hits with men on base. I thought it was good all day. I thought every one of them were big.”

Surhoff, who drove in four runs, and Kevin Seitzer had four hits each.

“Right now, they’re playing good baseball and they just beat us,” Minnesota’s Kirby Puckett said. “They beat us in all facets of the game, and we battled and battled, but there’s only so much you can do, man. You have to score runs and have people who can stop them from scoring runs, and we didn’t do that.”

Cleveland 9, Detroit 2--Orel Hershiser won his fifth consecutive decision and Paul Sorrento homered as the Indians completed a three-game sweep of the Tigers at Cleveland.

Eddie Murray drove in three runs for the Indians, winners of four in a row and eight of their last nine games. Hershiser (12-5) is 7-2 in 10 starts since recovering from a sprained back in early July. The Indians have scored 66 runs in those 10 games.

Boston 4, Oakland 1--Roger Clemens pitched seven strong innings, and Mike Greenwell and Bill Haselman homered to lead the Red Sox over the Athletics at Oakland.

Clemens (6-4) gave up one run on six hits, walked four and struck out two. Rick Aguilera pitched the ninth inning for his 25th save.

Todd Van Poppel (3-5) matched Clemens in the early innings but wore down and fell to 0-5 lifetime against the Red Sox.

Kansas City 5, Texas 2--Keith Lockhart hit a tiebreaking home run in the seventh inning and Gary Gaetti added a two-run homer in the eighth in helping the Royals win for the third time in four weekend games against the Rangers at Kansas City.

Tom Gordon (9-9) earned his fourth consecutive victory over Texas in Kauffman Stadium. Jeff Montgomery pitched the ninth inning for his 23rd save.

Roger Pavlik (6-9), making a team-high 25th start, lost his third in a row.

Toronto 2, Chicago 1--Paul Molitor tied a team record with his eighth consecutive hit, going four for four for the second game in a row and leading the Blue Jays at Toronto.

Molitor, who had a tiebreaking home run in the sixth inning, matched the Toronto mark for consecutive hits, set by Rance Mulliniks in 1984.

On Saturday, Molitor had singled home the winning run with two outs in the ninth inning. Molitor has reached base in nine consecutive plate appearances. Mulliniks holds the team record with 10.

New York 5, Seattle 2--The Yankees avoided their longest losing streak in nearly 13 years, stopping an eight-game skid when Scott Kamieniecki pitched them past the Mariners at Seattle.

Not since September of 1982 has New York lost nine in a row. The last time the Yankees lost eight in a row was September of 1991.

Kamieniecki (4-5) gave up two hits in 6 1/3 innings. He walked five and struck out three. John Wetteland closed for his 23rd save.