American League Baseball

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The standings in the American League tightened up somewhat when several underdogs rose up to take wins from first division ball clubs.

More later on Kansas City's two extra inning losses to Seattle.

Chicago won the first two games of a three game series with second place Minnesota, 6-3 and 7-6.

Seventh place Baltimore, stopped the bleeding by downing third place Detroit, 6-2 and then added insult to injury with a 10-0 cakewalk in game two.

Celler dwelling Boston surprised Washington with two consecutive wins dropping Wahsington 6-2 and 4-2. Washington has dropped five in a row,

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American League Statistical Leaders; (Before game one of each series)

Earl Coulson of Kansas City leads in all three Triple Crown categories; Coulson has a 374 batting average three point better than Seattle's Jim Naymick at .371.

Coulson has 12 homers which ties him for the league lead with Baltimore's Mickey Godwin.

Coulson has 32 runs batted in, two more than Don Magadan of Detroit and Harley Smith of Chicago.

Bobby Sheldon at 7-0 as the best pitching record. His teammate Steve Black's 1.70 ERA leads the pack and Detroit Fred Mienart has a league best 70 strikeouts.

KC's George Fernandez and Bob Jones (Minnesota) each have 14 saves.

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Game one

Seattle 5 Kansas City 4

10 Innings

''Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz once said, ''Winning by more than one point is just running the score up.''

The Seattle Mariners gladly settled for just such a win and probably wish that it had come an inning sooner.

Kansas City took a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning.

Rip Guerrero hit a two run homerun off Moore in the 4th inning.

Said Moore; ''I was way to careful pitching to Coulson and wound up walking him. Then I was determined to get ahead of Rip and he really ripped one. Didn't even turn to look...knew it was a souvenir.''

Moore then gave up successive singles to Walt Tomney and Doc Clayton on first and third with one out. Moore struck out the pitcher, Yvars for the second out and the Kansas City lead off batter, Chief Davis flied out to a sprinting Gary Davis in left field.

2-0 Kansas City.

*After the game manger Chip Scalzi cited the damage control of Moore in this inning as one of the keys to his team winning this game.

Coulson agreed, ''We had the duck on the pond and left 'em swimming in shallow water."

George Pappas, picked up off the waiver wire from St. Louis, hit his third homerun of the season, first with the Mariners to cut the lead to 2-1.

Another new acquisition, shortstop Larry Sweeney, singled to right field after the homerun, with just one out, but Tom Miller forced Sweeney, and Yvars struck out Paul Huntz.

First baseman Ralph Wood lead-off the 5th with a singe into right field. A passed ball on Kansas City catcher Everett Brocail advanced the runner to second. Gary Davis singled in Wood to tie the score.

Yvars then hit catcher Steve Cordero with a pitch that was hotly disputed by both Yvars and his catcher Brocail to no avail.

Moore complicated things for Settle by executing a poor bunt that was quickly fielded by the pitcher who made a very good throw to third baseman Chief Davis for the force out. One out in the inning.

On the next pitch Cordero caught the Kansas City battery sleeping and stole third base and was able to easily score on a sacrifice fly by Andy Pendergast.

*Another key play that went the Mariners way.

Pappas fanned for the third out.

Kansas City rallied and took another lead in the 7th inning. Clayton singled past the desperation dive of shortstop Larry Sweeney to start the inning. Pinch hitter (for Yvars, the pitcher) Foster Kuehne singled to center. Chief Davis followed with Kansas Cith's third hit of the inning but *left fielder Davis threw out Clayton at home plate.

*Sweeney made a gold star play to rob Brocail for the second out.

Gary Davis' error in left on a line drive by Don Ripple allowed Chief Davis to score an in-earned run for a 4-3 Kansas City lead.

Kansas City went to its excellent bullpen in the 7th bring in right hander Doc Adams. Adams gave up the game tying homerun to pinch hitter Buck Velazquez (7th).

*Kirk James entered for Seattle and gave the Mariners two scoreless innings another key to the game. (2 innings 1 hit 1 walk, 1 strikeout).

The tenth inning was the clincher and Seattle clinched it off that bullpen when Andy Pendergast tripled with two outs and scored on a clutch walk off single by George Pappas.

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Game Two.

Seattle 5 Kansas City 4

11 Innings

Things have gone badly for first place Kansas City in this series ace starter Bobby Sheldon failed to get his 8th win of the season and left after 8 innings (6 hits 2 runs 1 walk 7 strikeouts) to get a no-decision.

George Fernandez one of the league's top closers blew a chance to get his 15th save.

This game like game one was a back and forth affair.

Walt Tomney, having a good series with the bat hitting .500 (4 for 8) homered (2nd) with one out off Breeden making his second start for Seattle since being recalled from AAA.

1-0 Kansas City

Seattle took a 2-1 lead in the 3rd. Pitcher Ewald Breeden and Carter Rhoades singled to put runners on first and third. Paul Atwood picked up a RBI with a ground out to shortstop. Carter advanced to second. Naymick's singled made it 2-1 Seattle.

5th Inning; Breeden gave up a single to Chief Davis, and walked Brocail. Ripple singled in Davis to tie the game. Brocail to third base. Coulson's sac-fly made it 3-2.

8th Inning; Kansas City added an insurance run to go up 4-2 before they turned things over to their closer, Fernandez, warming up in the bullpen.

Breeden (7.1 innings 9 hits 4 earned runs 4 walks and 2 strikeouts) got one out in the inning, a big one Coulson bounced out to Papish at second). George Richmond and Walt Tomney singled to put runners on first and third.

Seattle made a pitching change; Roy Grand for Breeden.

Clayton's grounder to Sweeney got the fourth run home for the visitors.

Owning a 4-2 lead and Fernandez coming in is usually money in the bank for Kansas City going into a 9th inning.

Not in this series!

Fernandez stepped right into the fire walking the first two batters; Naymick and Miller, almost got out of it when Velazquz hit into a 5-4-3 double play sending Naymick to third now with two outs. Bill Springer, acquired from Cincinnati with Sweeney, picked Kansas City up hit his first homerun of the season tying the game and for the second straight game these two teams went into extra innings.

In game one Seattle got a pivotal relief two inning scoreless relief performance from Kirk James and in game two another of their recent pick ups, Milt Anderson gave them another scoreless two innings, although he did strand three runners of the 14 that Kansas City left on base.

The magic inning for Seattle this game was the 11th.

Chuck Estrada Jr. pitched the top of the 11th holding Kansas City scoreless as well and picked up the win (2-1) when Walt Papish doubled with one out and Sweeney won it with a single.