Mussina Turns It Around

After another shaky start, Mike Mussina became unhittable in a hurry.

Mussina settled down and lasted seven innings, Hideki Matsui hit a go-ahead single in the seventh and the New York Yankees won their sixth straight game Sunday with a 4-2 victory over the Kansas City Royals at New York.

Opponents were hitting a hefty .344 against Mussina coming into the game. And midway through the fourth inning, he had given up eight hits and two runs.

Then he retired 11 batters in a row.

“I was frustrated,” Mussina said. “I thought I was pitching better than two baserunners an inning. You have to realize every inning is a new inning and every hitter is a new hitter.”

The Yankees completed a three-game sweep of the Royals, who have dropped four in a row and 14 of 17. They fell to 1-10 on the road this season.

“With a pitcher like Mussina, if you’ve got him set up for the knockout punch, you’d better deliver it,” said Mike Sweeney, who drove in both runs for the Royals.

Trailing, 2-0, with runners at the corners in the third, Mussina (2-4) got Ken Harvey to ground into an inning-ending double play on a nice stop by second baseman Miguel Cairo.

Matsui doubled and scored on Cairo’s sacrifice fly in the bottom half, and Jason Giambi tied it an inning later with a homer into the upper deck against Jeremy Affeldt (0-3).

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Texas 4, Boston 1 -- R.A. Dickey came within one out of a shutout, and the Rangers completed a three-game sweep at Arlington, Texas.

Alfonso Soriano and David Dellucci homered for the surprising Rangers, who have won four in a row and eight of nine. The AL West leaders also won their seventh home game in a row.

Dickey (4-1) retired 14 consecutive batters during one stretch. The right-hander gave up four hits, struck out five and walked four in winning his third consecutive start.

It was the Rangers’ first series sweep of Boston since August 1999.

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Chicago 3, Toronto 2 -- Jon Garland gave up two runs in seven-plus innings, and Frank Thomas homered in the White Sox’ victory at Chicago.

After giving up consecutive singles to Gregg Zaun and Chris Gomez with no outs, Garland got Howie Clark to pop out. Then Frank Catalanotto hit a shallow fly ball to Carlos Lee, who made the catch, threw home and got Zaun trying to score from third.

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Tampa Bay 8, Oakland 2 -- Rocco Baldelli hit a two-run homer and Mark Hendrickson pitched six solid innings at St. Petersburg, Fla., to help the Devil Rays end a losing streak at six. Hendrickson’s victory ended a stretch of 20 consecutive winless starts by Tampa Bay left-handers.

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Seattle 12, Detroit 2 -- Gil Meche pitched six solid innings, and Scott Spiezio and Bret Boone homered to lead the Mariners at Detroit. John Olerud had three RBIs for Seattle, which set a season high for runs.

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Baltimore at Cleveland, ppd. -- The game involving the Orioles and Indians was postponed because of rain. No makeup date was scheduled.