White Sox Homers Topple Milwaukee

American League

Albert Belle and Robin Ventura each hit solo homers Wednesday night, leading the Chicago White Sox to a 3-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in Chicago.

Belle hit his 28th home run in the second inning and Ventura hit his fifth of the season in the fifth inning as the White Sox won their second straight after losing six in a row.

Cal Eldred (12-13) took the loss as the Brewers fell six games behind idle Cleveland in the A.L. Central.

Athletics 3, Blue Jays 2 Oakland, Calif.

Pinch-hitter Brian Lesher singled home the winning run with two outs in the ninth, giving the Athletics a victory over Toronto before the smallest Oakland crowd since 1986 - 4,764.

Red Sox 5, Yankees 2 Boston

Aaron Sele broke a three-game losing streak with his second consecutive strong start and Boston beat slumping New York.

Sele, who lost 1-0 to Montreal a week earlier, gave up four hits in 6-2/3 innings against the Yankees, who lost for the eighth time in 11 games.

New York still leads Anaheim by seven games in the wild-card race but dropped 8-1/2 games behind first-place Baltimore in the A.L. East.

Two Tigers fined

Detroit Tigers coach Rick Adair was suspended for three games and outfielder Bobby Higginson for two for their roles in a postgame confrontation with umpires Sunday.

A.L. president Gene Budig, who issued the suspensions, said they would take effect Friday. Detroit lost Sunday’s game 5-4 in 15 innings.

The Tigers were upset with some of the calls by plate umpire Mike Everitt. After the game, Adair and Higginson argued with different members of the umpiring crew.

Clearing the bases

Nomar Garciaparra’s RBI for Boston was his 88th, extending his major-league record for leadoff hitters. His two RBIs in Tuesday’s 8-6 loss to the Yankees broke a tie with Detroit’s Harvey Kuenn, who had 85 in 1956. … The Chicago White Sox will go to a six-man rotation for the rest of the season, inserting left-hander Mike Sirotka into the rotation.