Ramirez Belts Three as Indians Close In

Manny Ramirez hit three home runs for his first 40-homer season and drove in five runs Tuesday night as the Cleveland Indians moved closer to the American League Central title by defeating the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-5, at Cleveland.

Ramirez homered in consecutive at-bats in the third, fifth and seventh, becoming the sixth Indian player to hit 40 homers in a season. Ramirez, who didn’t bat again, joined Albert Belle, Rocky Colavito, Al Rosen, Jim Thome and Hal Trosky.

He also dealt another blow to the Blue Jays’ hopes in the AL wild-card chase. Toronto, which fell four games behind the Boston Red Sox, lost its second consecutive game after winning 14 of 16.

Cleveland won its third in a row and fourth in six games, reducing its magic number to two. The defending AL champions would clinch a tie for the division title with their next victory or the next loss by the Chicago White Sox.

Ramirez hit his first two homers against Dave Stieb (1-2), pitching in Cleveland for the first time since pitching a no-hitter against the Indians on Sept. 2, 1990, at Cleveland.

Seattle 12, Minnesota 7--Ken Griffey Jr. hit his AL-leading 52nd home run and became the fourth-youngest player in major league history to reach 1,000 runs batted in, driving in five runs to lead the Mariners at Minneapolis.

Griffey has 1,004 RBIs in 10 seasons. At 28 years and 10 months, he got to 1,000 faster than anyone except Mel Ott (27 years, three months), Jimmie Foxx (27 years, eight months) and Lou Gehrig (28 years, 9 1/2 months).

Detroit 2, Chicago 0--Rookie Seth Greisinger (6-8) gave up four hits in eight innings at Detroit in a game that started nearly two hours late because of rain.

Boston 9, New York 4--Rookie catcher Jason Varitek homered twice and drove in a career-high five runs at New York as the Red Sox ended a three-game losing streak.

Kansas City 6, Oakland 3--Jeff King and Scott Leius each drove in two runs for the Royals at Kansas City.