Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens earns his 495th victory against the Devil Rays.
By The Associated Press

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Roger Clemens took another step toward an impressive milestone.

Clemens won his 295th game and Alfonso Soriano and Nick Johnson opened the game with consecutive homers as the New York Yankees beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays 10-5 Sunday.

“Longevity is paying off,” Clemens said. “It’s something I’ve worked really hard throughout my career to do and I just keep getting paid back for it in different good ways.”

Clemens (2-0) allowed four runs and six hits in seven innings. After limiting Tampa Bay to a run and three hits through six, the six-time Cy Young Award winner gave up a three-run homer to Javier Valentin in the seventh.

Clemens struck out six, including rookie Rocco Baldelli four times, and walked three. He would be the 21st pitcher to reach 300 wins.

“Sure he wants to win 300,” Yankees manager Joe Torre said. “But I certainly think he wants to make his last year if it turns out to be his last year … something more than the 300 wins. I sense he’s looking beyond that. I think he’s looking to have the kind of season Roger Clemens is suppose to have.”

Bernie Williams also homered for the Yankees, who concluded a season-opening road trip at 5-1. New York has scored 54 runs and outhomered its opposition 15-2.

“It still surprises me that we’re swinging the bats this well this early,” Torre said.

Soriano and Johnson started the game with back-to-back homers off Victor Zambrano (0-1) to put the Yankees up 2-0. It was just the third time in team history the feat has been accomplished.

Hank Bauer and Andy Carey did it on April 27, 1955, against the Chicago White Sox. The other time came when Chuck Knoblauch and Derek Jeter homered on July 30, 1999, at Boston.

Valentin got the Devil Rays within 2-1 on a sacrifice fly in the second. He tied a career-high with four RBIs.

New York loaded the bases with no outs in the third, but scored just once on Williams’ sacrifice fly to make it 3-1. Williams hit a solo homer during a three-run, seventh and added an eighth-inning RBI double to move past Bob Meusel (1,005) into ninth place on the Yankees’ all-time RBI list with 1,007.

Blue Jays 8, Twins 1

MINNEAPOLIS – The Minnesota Twins are usually one of the toughest teams to beat at home. For one weekend, the Toronto Blue Jays had no problems doing it.

Carlos Delgado homered and drove in four runs, and Cory Lidle pitched seven strong innings as Toronto completed a three-game sweep of the Twins with an 8-1 victory Sunday.

The Twins were 101-61 at the Metrodome over the past two seasons, but were swept at home for just the third time since the beginning of the 2001 season.

“That’s not the norm here,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. “We expect to win at home. Teams don’t come in here and get us like this.”

Royals rained out

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The weather did what no team could do in the first week of the season – stop the Kansas City Royals from winning.

The Royals, off to a 5-0 start for the first time in franchise history, were rained out Sunday against the Cleveland Indians.

Kansas City is off Monday before opening a three-city, 10-game road trip Tuesday in Detroit. The Royals’ first five victories were at Kauffman Stadium.

“There’s been a lot of questions about us playing so well at home, and let’s see how we do on the road,” manager Tony Pena said. “I think it is no factor. We just have to go out and play the game.”

After three games in Detroit, the Royals will play four at Cleveland and three at Chicago before returning home on April 18 against the Tigers.

Mariners 11, Rangers 2

ARLINGTON, Texas – Edgar Martinez homered and Dan Wilson hit an RBI single on the first pitch he saw this season as the Seattle Mariners jumped on Chan Ho Park early and beat the Texas Rangers 11-2 Sunday.

Seattle led 4-0 when Park (0-2) was pulled after Ichiro Suzuki’s leadoff single in the fourth. The Mariners scored in each of the first three innings.

Park has pitched just 5 2-3 innings in his two starts, allowing 10 runs and 11 hits. The right-hander was 9-8 in an injury-plagued 2002 season, his first after signing a $65 million, five-year deal with Texas.

Freddy Garcia (1-1) bounced back from his poor first start, allowing just two runs and three hits in 6 1-3 innings. He struck out four and walked six, the last to consecutive batters in the seventh before he was pulled after 118 pitches (64 strikes).

White Sox 10, Tigers 2

CHICAGO – The Detroit Tigers became the first team in 40 years to start 0-6 in consecutive seasons, giving up nine runs in the eighth inning of a 10-2 loss to the Chicago White Sox on Sunday.

Magglio Ordonez’s three-run homer capped Chicago’s rally. The New York Mets were the last club to lose its first six games in two straight seasons, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, baseball’s statistician. They did it in 1962-63, their first two seasons.

Detroit began 0-11 last year and finished 55-106, tying Tampa Bay for the worst record in the majors. Rookie manager Alan Trammell is still looking for his first win.

Miguel Olivo drew a bases-loaded walk to push across the go-ahead run in the eighth, D’Angelo Jimenez had a two-run double and Josh Paul, who entered earlier in the inning as a pinch-runner, added a two-run single.

Six of the runs in the eighth were charged to knuckleballer Steve Sparks, although none were earned because his error helped the White Sox start the rally.