[RebelYell]

Indians avoid sweep by Orioles
The Cleveland Indians lost the first two games of the series to the Baltimore Orioles and trailed 6-1 on Sunday at Jacobs Field.

But four different Indians hit solo homers and Bob Howry, horrible in his debut with the Tribe on Friday, was the pitcher of record when Cleveland overtook the Orioles in a 7-6 decision.

"For 22 innings, they just battered our pitching," Bobby Don Southworth said. "They're a pretty good hitting ballclub. We were just fortunate that our bats came around when they did."

Jermaine Clark went 3-for-4 and clubbed the go-ahead home run in the eighth off Howry as Baltimore won the first game, 6-3. On Saturday, the hits kept coming for the Orioles. They slapped Kevin Millwood around for 12 hits in four innings and romped to an 11-5 victory.

Melvin Mora belted two home runs and knocked in five runs.

"Mark Grace always talked about finding a fat old ugly woman to bust your hitting slump," Southworth said. "Seems some of these guys just need to see our pitching to snap out of theirs."

The series was about to go completely down the tubes before Cleveland awoke in the sixth inning of Sunday's finale. Grady Sizemore rapped three hits in five trips and Brandon Phillips extended his hitting streak to 16 games. Both participated in Cleveland's parade of solo-shot home runs.

"It's a good way to start off May," said Southworth, whose team leads the AL Central by 4.5 games. "It was a little disconcerting to be down 6-1 after losing the first two games and having the Yankees coming to town on top of all of that. We found a way to salvage a win, though, and that's the important thing."

New York invades for three games, starting tonight. The feature game of the series will have Cleveland's 22-year-old lefty Jeremy Sowers facing for Indian Jaret Wright.