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Davis Leads Orioles Past Tigers


Eric Davis hit two homers, including a tiebreaking two-run shot in the seventh inning, as the Baltimore Orioles finished a three-game sweep by beating the Detroit Tigers 6-4 Thursday.

Jeffrey

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  • Hammonds hit a two-run double for the Orioles, who blew an early 4-0 lead before earning their 17th win in 20 games since the All-Star break.

    Davis' third multi-homer game of the season extended his hitting streak to a career best-matching 17 games. Since the All-Star break he is batting .423 (36-for-85) with nine homers and 28 RBIs.

    Davis hit a solo homer in the first off Justin Thompson, and his home run off hard-throwing rookie Matt Anderson (2-1) snapped a 4-4 tie in the seventh.

    "I don't know where it was," Davis said of Anderson's near-100 mph fastball. "I was just swinging."

    Anderson had allowed just one earned run in 15 1-3 innings before Davis connected.

    "I guess the pitch was up. I knew it was gone," Anderson said. "It just wasn't a good pitch. I knew eventually this was something I'd have to deal with. You take the good with the bad."

    Tigers manager Buddy Bell didn't blame Anderson or his other pitchers for the loss as much as he did his hitters. Especially for letting Orioles starter Jimmy Key out of the two bases-loaded jams.

    "I wish I knew what to do with our offense, but I don't," Bell said. "We're going backwards offensively for some reason. I don't know if our guys are looking at numbers at this time of year, but we're not taking the walks when they're there."

    Pete Smith (1-3) Key and pitched three innings, allowing one run and two its. Armando Benitez pitched the ninth for his 15th save.

    Key, making his first start since May 20, needed 80 pitches to get through just three innings. He gave up three runs on five hits and four walks.

    "We won despite me today," Key said. "I didn't throw good. You can blame it on a lot of things. The ball was up all day and I couldn't get it down. I was at a loss trying to find a way."

    The left-hander, recovering from an inflamed left rotator cuff, was staked to a 4-0 lead and escaped bases-loaded, one-out jams in each of the first two innings before the Tigers scored three in the third.

    "Even though I got out of the first two innings, obviously it wasn't good, and it caught up with me in the third," Key said.

    Orioles manager Ray Miller was just happy to see key on the mound again.

    "I think he'll be fine. He felt fine," Miller said. "I know that Jimmy can do. If he can get through the growing pains he'll be OK. I know he can throw 80 pitches. Now he has to do it over six (innings)."

    Davis homered the other way to the right-field upper deck to give the Orioles a 1-0 lead in the first before poor Tigers fielding led to three more runs in the second.

    "He's always been what I call an electric player," Miller said. "Every time he goes out there something good seems to happen."

    Cal Ripken Jr. led off with a double and Chris Hoiles was hit by a pitch, and both scored when Brian Hunter badly misjudged Hammonds' drive to dead center field into a triple. Hammonds came home when left fielder Luis Gonzalez dropped Mike Bordick's fly ball for his first error of the year.

    The Tigers chased Key after a three-run third that included Geronimo Berroa's RBI triple, a run-scoring double from Gonzalez and an RBI single from Paul Bako. Damion Easley hit a run-scoring single off Smith to tie it at 4 in the fourth.

    Notes:

  • Davis also had a 17-game hitting streak with Cincinnati in 1986.
  • Detroit's Tony Clark has a career-best 11-game hitting streak.
  • Gonzalez played 129 errorless games before dropping Bordick's fly ball in the second.
  • Orioles reliever Jesse Orosco made his 1,002nd appearance, tying him with Goose Gossage for fifth place on the pitchers' career list.
  • Tigers catcher Raul Casanova, on the disabled list since July 21 with a strained left hamstring, began a rehabilitation assignment Thursday at Triple-A Toledo.

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