AMERICAN LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Twins Lose, but Win Title When Mariners Eliminate White Sox

It wasn’t exactly the way they would have preferred it, but the Minnesota Twins were only too happy to accept the honor.

Although they lost, 2-1, Sunday at Toronto, the clinched the American League West, becoming the first major league team to go from last place to first.

Minnesota clinched when Seattle beat the Chicago White Sox.

At the same time, the victory for the Blue Jays put them in a perfect position to be the Twins’ opponent in the AL championship series.

With Boston losing its fourth game in a row, the Blue Jays stretched their lead in the East to 4 1/2 games. They have only six games remaining. Only a complete collapse can beat them.

The jinx that has hit other 19-game winners trying for No. 20 caught Scott Erickson. The big right-hander pitched a five-hitter, but two of them plus a walk and his own late throw to third on a bunt came in the first inning when Toronto scored both runs.

Four Toronto pitchers gave up six hits, with Todd Stottlemyre (14-8) going 6 1/3 innings for the victory.

A year ago the Twins were 74-88, 29 games behind Oakland. Only the New York Yankees in the had a worse record in the AL.

During the off-season the Twins made four changes, none of which seemed of major importance. They signed Jack Morris, who had a 21-32 record in two previous seasons, was soon to be 36 and had pitched 3,000 innings.

They also signed Chili Davis, 31, and coming off a weak season with the Angels, reliever Steve Bedrosian and third baseman Mike Pagliarulo.

After two weeks they appeared to be the same old Twins. They were 2-9 and already 5 1/2 games out of first place.

But Erickson and Morris started winning almost every time out, Davis started to hit and the Twins began to play better than any other team in the West.

In mid-June they wrested first place from Oakland with a 15-game winning streak and to the surprise of almost everyone, stayed there. The White Sox came within a game in mid-August, but never caught the Twins.

“Any time a team can accomplish something that’s never been done in the history of baseball, you have to be excited,” Twin General Manager Andy MacPhail said. “We did it in the game’s most difficult division. There was no winning by default. To go from last to first in that climate was very difficult and very rewarding.”

The Twins were on a bus headed for the airport to fly to Chicago when they learned they had clinched it.

“We really played well played well after the first couple of weeks,” said Manager Tom Kelly, probably a cinch for managerial honors. “We got into the lead, we maintained our lead and we increased our lead.”

After the White Sox lost, it didn’t matter, but the Twins, who wind up the regular season with three games at home against the Blue Jays, had to think they were snake-bit.

Center fielder Devon White made a spectacular leaping catch to rob Pagliarulo of a home run in the seventh after Gene Larkin opened with a double.

Paul Sorrento’s pinch single scored the Twins’ run. But third baseman Kelly Gruber made a nice stop of Greg Gagne’s hot smash for the second out. Randy Bush got an infield hit, but rookie pinch-runner Jarvis Brown rounded third too far and was tagged out.

Milwaukee 5, Boston 4--The Red Sox seem to have played themselves out of the race.

They took a 4-0 lead in five innings at Milwaukee, but wound up losing their fourth in a row. They have only seven games left.

Relief ace Jeff Reardon, bothered by a sore shoulder for the last 10 days, gave up a two-run double to Dale Sveum in the eighth inning to allow the Brewers to win it.

Their fourth victory in a row brought the Brewers to .500 for the first time since early May.

The Red Sox were missing injured players Wade Boggs and Luis Rivera, and Mike Greenwell appeared only as a pinch-hitter.

Seattle 2, Chicago 1--The White Sox, who finished a surprising second a year ago, seem destined to finish a disappointing second this year.

Randy Johnson, the 6-foot-10 left-hander from USC, put an end to the White Sox’s pennant hopes in this game at Chicago.

Johnson (13-10) gave up four hits and struck out 10 in 7 2/3 innings to beat Charlie Hough, who held the Mariners hitless until the sixth, but trailed, 1-0.

Baltimore 7, Detroit 4--Almost by himself, Cal Ripken eliminated the Tigers from the East race.

Ripken, making his bid for the MVP award, hit two home runs and drove in four runs at Detroit to lead the Orioles. Ripken has 34 home runs and 114 runs batted in.

Oakland 19, Texas 5--Now that the pressure of trying to win a fourth consecutive pennant is off, the Athletics are hammering the ball at Oakland.

They scored 18 runs in the first five innings, three runs in each of four innings and six in the other. Rickey Henderson, who was not much help when needed most, was five for five, driving in four runs.

Jose Canseco had four hits and four RBIs, but he failed to break his home run tie with Detroit’s Cecil Fielder. Both have 43.

Cleveland 5, New York 2--Rookie Ed Taubensee had three hits and his first three RBIs in Cleveland.