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 Heredia wins 8th straight Oakland remains tied with Red Sox in wild-card race
Posted: Saturday August 28, 1999 11:18 PM
CHICAGO (AP) -- Gil Heredia won his eighth straight decision and Miguel Tejada homered, tripled and doubled Saturday night as the Oakland Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox 7-5 to stay tied for the AL wild-card lead. John Jaha hit his 31st home run as Oakland kept pace with Boston, which defeated Anaheim 7-6. Tejada drove in three runs and made two sharp plays at shortstop as the A's won their seventh straight against the White Sox. Carlos Lee hit a solo homer in the White Sox ninth. With two outs, Brook Fordyce hit a line drive that right fielder Jason McDonald seemed ready to catch, but the ball hit him in the head. McDonald's hat was knocked off and he fell to the ground for about a minute. He stayed in the game and, after that unusual single, Doug Jones relieved for his eighth save. Heredia (11-5) allowed hits to the first three batters he faced, then retired 18 straight. He hasn't lost since June 10 at San Diego, a stretch of 14 starts. Magglio Ordonez singled to lead off the Chicago seventh and raced to third as the ball got by center fielder Ryan Christenson for a two-base error. Ordonez scored on an error by third baseman Scott Spiezio before Heredia retired the next three batters.
Heredia walked none, struck out two and allowed five hits. He left after a bloop single by Fordyce leading off the eighth. The White Sox went on to load the bases, but managed just one run on Ordonez's sacrifice fly. Tejada kept it at 5-4 by snagging a high throw for a forceout and going into center to grab a short fly. Jaha hit a two-run homer in the ninth. Tejada hit a two-run homer in the sixth, his 17th, to put the Athletics ahead 5-2 and drive out Jaime Navarro, who lost his season-high fourth straight decision. Tejada tripled in the fifth and doubled in the eighth. He came up in the ninth with a chance at the cycle, but was intentionally walked with two outs and a runner on second. Oakland took the lead with three in the fifth against Navarro (7-12). Spiezio singled and Tejada tripled before Rich Becker hit an RBI single and stole second, setting up Randy Velarde's RBI single. Chicago scored a pair off Heredia in the first. Ray Durham's leadoff fly ball to left-center was misjudged by Becker and fell for a double and Mike Caruso had a bunt single. Durham scored on Mike Macfarlane's passed ball and Frank Thomas hit an RBI double. Notes: Christenson entered the game as a pinch runner in the seventh and made his error in the bottom half of the inning. ... Durham scored his 100th run, reaching that figure for the third straight season. ... The A's have scored 190 runs in August. Seattle's 191 runs in May were the most by a major league team this season over one month. ... Art Howe now has 288 victories as Oakland's manager, tying him with Dick Williams for second place on the team's career list. Tony La Russa is the leader with 798. ... The White Sox are expecting more than 500 canines for their annual Dog Day afternoon promotion Sunday.
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