Grady Sizemore reached a lofty plateau, and he might not be finished.
Sizemore hit two home runs and joined the 30-30 club and Franklin Gutierrez had a 10th-inning solo shot to help the Cleveland Indians win their eighth straight, 4-3 over the Detroit Tigers on Monday night in Detroit.
Sizemore homered on the game's second pitch and became the 14th American League player β the second from the Indians β to have at least 30 homers and 30 stolen bases in a season.
With 32 games remaining, Sizemore has 31 homers and 34 steals, giving him an outside chance of becoming the fifth player ever to reach 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in the same season.
Not that he's obsessed with getting there.
"I don't try to hit homers. I try to just keep the ball in the gap and in the center of the field," he said. "I've got a long way to go."
In other AL games on Monday, it was: Oakland 2, Los Angeles 1 Baltimore 4, Chicago 3 in 14 innings in the completion of a suspended game Chicago 4, Baltimore 3 Texas 9, Kansas City 4 and Seattle 4, Minnesota 2 in 11 innings.
Sizemore has been a lone bright spot for Cleveland this season, and after hitting No. 30 on the second pitch of the game, he trotted around the bases and stepped into the dugout as if it were no big deal.
"He's unbelievable," manager Eric Wedge said of the three-time All-Star. "You wouldn't know if it was his first or his 30th. In a low-scoring game, he set the tone. That's what he does. He does it from a spot in the order that can give us a lot of energy."
Meanwhile, the Red Sox were set for their last visit to Yankee Stadium. The three-game series, starting late yesterday, has big wild card ramifications. Boston leads Minnesota in the wild-card race, and New York is five games back.
Hank Steinbrenner said he thinks his Yankees can still put together a late surge and make the playoffs.
"If we put on a run here, there's no question we can make it," Steinbrenner, a Yankees' co-chairman, said on Monday night at the team's spring training complex in Tampa, Florida. "There's no question with the number of games we have left, it's possible."
The Indians are a full 12 games behind Boston and are essentially out of the playoff chase. Not that Sizemore is to blame.
Sizemore became the first AL player to join the 30-30 club since Alfonso Soriano did it for Texas in 2005. Joe Carter is the only other Cleveland player to accomplish the feat, which he did in 1987.
In the National League, Carlos Delgado hit a pair of three-run home runs to help the New York Mets rout the Houston Astros 9-1 and maintain their slender lead in the National League East.
The Mets stayed a half-game ahead of Philadelphia in the division after the Phillies blanked the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-0. The Mets meet the Phillies in a crucial two-game series that was to start in Philadelphia.
In other NL games, it was: Cubs 12, Pirates 3 Padres 4, Diamondbacks 2 and Rockies 4, Giants 2.
(Agencies via Shanghai Daily August 27, 2008)