Major League Baseball roundup
Bonds homers twice in opener LOS ANGELES (AP) – At this rate, Barry Bonds will break his own home-run record this year.
Bonds homered twice and drove in five runs Tuesday to lead the San Francisco Giants to a season-opening 9-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
After hitting 73 homers last year to topple the record set by Mark McGwire in 1998, Bonds hit a two-out, three-run shot off Kevin Brown on his second swing of the season, a drive that capped a five-run second inning.
Bonds had an RBI single off Brown (0-1) in the fourth, then sent a 1-1 pitch from Omar Daal just inside the right-field foul pole in seventh, becoming the 10th player to reach the loge level at Dodger Stadium.
The home runs gave Bonds five on opening day and 569 overall, moving four behind Harmon Killebrew, who ranks sixth on baseball’s career list.
Bonds, who came out of the game after hitting his second homer, ended last season by hitting his final three against the Dodgers at Pacific Bell Park including No. 73 off knuckleballer Dennis Springer in the final game.
Livan Hernandez (1-0), making his third straight opening-day start for the Giants, won by allowing two runs and four hits in eight innings.
Expos 7, Marlins 6
MONTREAL – The Montreal Expos made their fans forget about extinction and feel some excitement.
Down to their last out in what might’ve been their final season opener, the Expos rallied for three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning and beat the Florida Marlins on Orlando Cabrera’s single.
A crowd of 34,351 cheered loudly after Jose Vidro tied it with a two-out, two-run single and Cabrera won it.
While Cabrera was mobbed by his teammates, new manager Frank Robinson wildly waved his hat to the fans and gave them a big thumbs-up.
The Expos survived baseball’s plan to eliminate them during the winter, but poor support is likely to doom them beyond this, their 34th season in Montreal. A crowd of only 3,500 to 6,000 was expected for Wednesday night’s game.
Jeff Torborg, who managed Montreal for the final four months of the 2001 season, moved from the Expos to Florida less than a week before spring training. He changed jobs when Jeffrey Loria sold the Expos to major league baseball and bought the Marlins.
Matt Herges (1-0) was the winner and Braden Looper (0-1) took the loss.
Diamondbacks 9, Padres 0
PHOENIX (AP) – Curt Schilling picked up where Randy Johnson left off by throwing seven scoreless innings and Damian Miller hit a grand slam as the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the San Diego Padres.
Schilling, 26-6 last season counting his 4-0 postseason mark, struck out nine, allowed six hits and didn’t walk a batter one night. In Monday’s opener, Johnson fanned eight and threw a six-hitter in a 2-0 shutout.
Schilling and Johnson were co-MVPs of the World Series.
The Diamondbacks received their World Series rings in a ceremony before the game in front of a sellout crowd 48,042, then made quick work of Brian Tollberg (0-1) and the Padres.
Brewers 9, Astros 3
HOUSTON – The name Enron was gone from the ballpark. As far as the Houston Astros were concerned, hitting and pitching were missing, too.
Ben Sheets struck out a career-high eight, and Richie Sexson, Tyler Houston and Jose Hernandez drove in two runs each to lead the Milwaukee Brewers to a season-opening win over the Houston Astros.
Following the collapse of Enron, the NL Central champions bought back naming rights to their ballpark from the bankrupt energy company. The downtown stadium was known as Enron Field during its first two seasons, but it is Astros Field now – until the team finalizes a new naming rights deal.
Wade Miller, who won his final seven decisions last season and had been 7-0 against Milwaukee, made his first opening-day start and left in the fifth inning after consecutive homers by Sexson and Geoff Jenkins. Alex Ochoa also homered for the Brewers, in the eighth off Scott Linebrink.
Sheets, a member of the gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic team two years ago, allowed two runs and nine hits in six innings and walked none.
Devil Rays 9, Tigers 5
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Tampa Bay’s “Heart & Hustle” campaign is off to a successful start.
Greg Vaughn’s two-out RBI single broke an eighth-inning tie and the young Devil Rays went on to beat the Detroit Tigers 9-5 Tuesday night before a season-opening crowd of 38,142 at Tropicana Field.
Vaughn broke a 5-5 tie after loser Juan Acevedo walked Steve Cox intentionally to get to the Devil Rays’ cleanup hitter.
Ben Grieve drew a bases-loaded walk to drive in another run and Bobby Smith added a two-run double that glanced off pitcher Danny Patterson’s foot and rolled into shallow right field.
Victor Zambrano pitched two-thirds of an inning for the win, and Esteban Yan finished.
Tampa Bay scored on pitcher Jeff Weaver’s throwing error in the third, Brent Abernathy’s RBI double in the fourth and Toby Hall’s run-scoring single in the fifth to build a 3-1 lead against Detroit’s ace.
Cox’s two-run single in the sixth wiped out a 5-3 lead the Tigers took when they scored four times off starter Tanyon Sturtze in the sixth.
Mike Rivera and Jose Macias delivered RBI singles off Sturtze before Bobby Higginson finished the rally with a two-run double off Jesus Colome.
Offseason acquisition Craig Paquette, filling in for injured slugger Dean Palmer, drove in Detroit’s first run with a fourth-inning double.
After becoming the first AL team to lose 100 games since the 1996 Tigers, Tampa Bay begins this season with the youngest (average age 27.51) and least experienced (average big league tenure 2.16 seasons) roster in the majors.
Twelve Devil Rays were on an opening-day roster for the first time and 11 had less than a full season in the majors, including three rookies who had not played above Class A ball.
The youth movement was launched early last summer when the team began trimming the payroll. Tampa Bay finished the season with a scrappy lineup that produced a 27-26 record over the last 47 games.
The key to the stretch was solid pitching, and Sturtze was a big part that in going 8-5 after the All-Star break – tying Mike Mussina and Roger Clemens of the Yankees for the most victories in the AL East.
The Devil Rays starter was not at his best against the Tigers, allowing five runs and nine hits in 5 2-3 innigs.
Higginson’s two-run double off Colome gave the Tigers a 5-3 lead that Weaver and his bullpen couldn’t hold.