Thome Safe at Home and So Are the Indians

To say that Jim Thome streaked home on Travis Fryman’s sacrifice fly to end a scoreless tie in the seventh inning Monday night at Cleveland would be generous on a couple of fronts.

For one thing, Thome doesn’t streak anywhere. He’s among baseball’s slowest runners.

For another, replays showed that Texas catcher Bill Haselman tagged Thome on the left shoulder, but plate umpire Brian Runge ruled Thome safe.

An inning later, Thome singled in the game’s other run in the Indians’ 2-0 victory.

Ranger Manager Johnny Oates refused to give his take on the call.

“Go ask the umpire,” was all Oates would offer. “He is the only one who has the final say.”

That say helped Cleveland to its sixth win in a row, just what Thome ordered.

“I’ve been saying for two weeks that for us to get back in the wild-card race, we need to win seven, eight, nine games in a row,” Thome said. “This team believes in itself.”

Cleveland, which hadn’t won six in a row since April 7-12, moved within 2 1/2 games of Oakland, which leads the AL wild-card race.

The Indians are 7-3 since making a flurry of trading deadline moves.

Cleveland also got a boost from pitcher Steve Woodard, thrust into a starting role on only two days’ rest when scheduled starter Dave Burba was pushed back because of a finger blister.

Woodard pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings, and Tom Martin, Steve Reed, Steve Karsay and Bob Wickman pitched hitless ball the rest of the way for Cleveland.

“We’re starting to come on,” Indian Manager Charlie Manuel said.

“We’re playing better and we’re getting some breaks. When our pitching is good, then we’ve got a chance.”

Gabe Kapler extended his hitting streak to 21 games for the Rangers, who left the bases loaded in the fifth and sixth innings in wasting a strong performance from starter Rick Helling (13-8).

“I pitched well enough to win,” said Helling, who gave up four hits in seven innings but lost for the first time in seven decisions.

Helling retired 12 consecutive hitters before his first and only walk--to Thome--opened the seventh. One out later, a hit-and-run single by Wil Cordero sent Thome to third.

Fryman then hit a fly ball to medium right where Chad Curtis was in perfect position to make a strong throw home. He fired to the plate on the fly, but it was a little high, giving Thome the chance to slap the plate as he slid by.

Baltimore 4, Detroit 3--Ivanon Coffie hit a tiebreaking sacrifice fly in the ninth inning and Brady Anderson homered to lead the Orioles to a victory at Detroit.

With the score tied, 3-3, Chris Richard led off the ninth with a double off Doug Brocail (5-4) and advanced on Brook Fordyce’s groundout. Coffie then lifted a fly to center that was just deep enough to score Richard.

Buddy Groom (4-3) struck out the only batter he faced, Bobby Higginson in the eighth inning, and Ryan Kohlmeier pitched a perfect ninth for his first major league save, sealing Baltimore’s sixth win in nine games.

Minnesota 4, Tampa Bay 2--Mark Redman (10-5) became the first American League rookie to win 10 games, giving up four hits in 8 2/3 innings of a win at St. Petersburg, Fla.

Redman struck out nine to win for the fifth time in his last six starts and benefited from a two-run homer by Corey Koskie in the sixth inning.

After Russ Johnson’s second-inning single, Redman, a 26-year-old left-hander, allowed only one runner in the next six innings. He took a two-hitter into the ninth before Greg Vaughn singled, advanced on defensive indifference and scored on Fred McGriff’s single.

Kansas City 8, Toronto 7--Todd Dunwoody went four for four and drove in three runs and Johnny Damon had four hits and two RBIs for the Royals, who rallied at Kansas City.

Damon had a two-run double off reliever Lance Painter in the sixth inning to give the Royals a 5-4 lead in a game delayed 2 hours 54 minutes at the start because of rain.

Dunwoody had a two-run RBI double in the seventh to make it 8-4.

Carlos Delgado tripled in the eighth for Toronto and scored on Tony Batista’s bloop single to make it 8-5, and Dave Martinez and Delgado added RBI singles off Ricky Bottalico in the ninth to make it a one-run game.