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Gaudin wins first game in five weeks to drop Tigers

Aug 14, 2007 - 3:58 AM DETROIT (Ticker) -- Chad Gaudin struck out a career-high nine batters over 6 2/3 strong innings and Shannon Stewart had three hits and three runs as the Oakland Athletics earned a split of a four-game series with the Detroit Tigers with a 7-2 victory over the Detroit Tigers.

Gaudin (9-8) hadn't won since July 5 against the Seattle Mariners, going 0-5 with an 8.54 ERA in his previous six starts, and it looked like another rough outing early for the smallish righthander.

"It's been a rough month for me, the last five or six starts haven't been the greatest," Gaudin said. "It was real important for me to go out there and give a good performance. Now it's over with and lets move on to the next one."

Gaudin yielded two runs in the first inning, but regrouped and retired 10 batters in a row at one point. He escaped a two-out double by Ivan Rodriguez in the fourth and a one-out triple by Carlos Guillen in the sixth.

"I felt good the first inning," Gaudin said. "I was just trying to feel for it too much. I was trying to, I guess you could say guiding the ball, in a sense. I let it rip and trusted (myself). It was good. It was good for the team, good for me and just all around good enough."

After allowing a one-out single to Brandon Inge in the seventh, Gaudin departed when Curtis Granderson followed by hitting into a fielder's choice. Andrew Brown struck out Placido Polanco to end the frame.

Gaudin yielded four hits and two walks among his 108 pitches.

Oakland wasted no time getting to Detroit starter Chad Durbin (7-5), as Stewart led off the game with a single to left field and Mark Ellis followed by drilling a 1-2 changeup over the left field fence for his 16th homer of the season.

Oakland took the lead for good in the fourth, loading the bases with one out on walks to rookie Kurt Suzuki and Jack Cust sandwiched around a base hit by Stewart. Mike Piazza singled in a run for a 3-2 edge and a groundout by Dan Johnson plated another run.

After Durbin departed with runners on second and third and one out, Marco Scutaro continued to pound Detroit pitching in this series, greeting Jason Grilli with a two-run single to center for a 6-2 lead. Scutaro walked with the bases loaded in the sixth for his ninth RBI of the series.

"Our offense was real good tonight," Scutaro said. "We scored at lot of runs, I hope we can continue to do that."

Durbin was tagged for six runs and six hits in 4 1/3 innings.

"I just couldn't make any adjustments," Durbin said. "I couldn't locate my pitches. Couldn't make the big pitch when I needed too and couldn't put guys away."

Magglio Ordonez drove in two runs in the first for 104 RBI for the season.

"The guy is seeing beach balls," Gaudin said of Ordonez. "I just went at him. I wasn't going to pitch around him. He does a lot of great things and I wanted to take that out of the equation. Just trust in the pitches that we called and that it's going to be the right pitch."

Detroit (65-53) dropped back into a first-place tie with the Cleveland Indians (65-53) in the American League Central. Detroit heads for Cleveland to start a brief two-game series starting Tuesday.

"We are playing good enough to win," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "If we don't start pitching and hitting, we are going to get our butts beat every night.

"It's that simple."

Polanco set a major league record by playing in his 144th consecutive errorless game, breaking a tie with Luis Castillo, who achieved the feat with the Florida Marlins.

"It means a lot to me," Polanco said. "Nobody in the history of baseball has done it before." "I just wish it wasn't sure a tough day."