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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
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GAME LOG
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Aaron Sele is doing even better than the
Seattle Mariners.
|  | | Aaron Sele ties a team record by winning his seventh consecutive game to start the season.
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Sele pitched seven strong innings to become the American League's third seven-game winner as the streaking Seattle Mariners beat Kansas
City 7-2 Saturday night.
Seattle won for the 12th time in 15 games and is a major
league-best 35-12, including 20-5 in the road.
"That's just a testament to all the guys that they're not
losing focus when we go on the road," Sele said.
"They're showing up early. They're taking extra work and
showing up ready to play every day," he said. "We're not looking
down the road. We're not worried about what we've done in the past.
We all understand there are four months to go in the season."
Sele (7-0), off to the best start of his career, allowed both
runs and eight hits. He joined Brad Radke and Dave Burba as the
AL's only seven-game winners and lowered his ERA to 2.81, second in
the league behind Boston's Pedro Martinez (1.60).
"Early in the game, Sele was having a tough time getting his
breaking ball over," Kansas City manager Tony Muser said. "But
like a lot of good pitchers, once you let them settle in they get
better and better."
Sele has walked just four batters in his last seven starts,
covering 46 innings. He tied the Mariners' record for consecutive
victories at the start of the season, set by right-handed reliever Roy
Thomas in 1985.
"Fortunately for me, the way our defense is playing you can be
real aggressive with guys and come after them even when you're
behind in the count," he said.
Brian Meadows (1-6) gave up four runs and seven hits in four
innings. He has one victory in 11 starts since last Sept. 16.
"There's nothing I can do about this game but learn from it,"
Meadows said.
Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki was 1-for-6, dropping his average to
.357.
"Nobody is easy to hit off of," he said through a translator.
Carlos Guillen's two-run double and the first of Dan Wilson's
two run-scoring singles gave the Mariners a 3-0 lead in the second.
Wilson Delgado hit a run-scoring grounder in the bottom half, but
Seattle went ahead 4-1 on Wilson's run-scoring single in the
fourth. Bret Boone hit a two-run homer off Blake Stein in the
seventh.
Rey Sanchez hit a run-scoring groundout in the seventh that made it
6-2.
John Olerud, who was 3-for-5, had a run-scoring double against Doug
Henry in the eighth.
Mike Sweeney hit his league-leading 25th double in the third.
With 16 in May, he is two shy of George Brett's Royals record for a
month, set in 1990.
Game notes
Sanchez, who has played in all 48 games for the Royals, has
only one error and leads AL shortstops in fielding. ... Even if
they lose their final two games of this four-game series, the
Mariners will have lost only two of 16 series. ... Olerud made a
fine play on Sanchez's grounder to first in the fifth, diving to
his right to stop the ball from going into the outfield and then
throwing to Sele covering the bag. ... It took Al Nipper only eight
batters to make his first trip to the mound as Kansas City's new
pitching coach.
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RECAPS
NY Yankees 12
Cleveland 5
Texas 0
Baltimore 0
Oakland 5
Minnesota 4
Minnesota 7
Oakland 6
(2nd game)
Anaheim 10
Tampa Bay 4
Toronto 5
Boston 0
Chi. White Sox 8
Detroit 0
Seattle 7
Kansas City 2
Florida 7
NY Mets 3
Milwaukee 0
Chicago Cubs 0
Colorado 10
San Francisco 4
Atlanta 9
Pittsburgh 3
Cincinnati 7
St. Louis 2
Montreal 0
Philadelphia 0
Arizona 3
San Diego 1
Los Angeles 7
Houston 2
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