Seattle’s Meche Keeps Clemens Stuck at 297

Roger Clemens didn’t get closer to 300 victories, and Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui did little to garner headlines other than show up.

Surrounded by all the big names converging at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night, Gil Meche pitched the game of his life and overshadowed the long-awaited matchup of Japanese baseball’s biggest stars.

Meche took a three-hitter into the eighth inning, helping deny Clemens his 298th win and helping the Seattle Mariners defeat the New York Yankees, 6-0.

Bret Boone, Ben Davis and Edgar Martinez homered for Seattle, which has won 12 of its last 13 regular-season games at Yankee Stadium.

Japanese fans were evident in the crowd of 38,724, and T-shirts with pictures of Suzuki and Matsui were on sale.

Suzuki had a bunt single in five at-bats and Matsui had one hit in four at-bats, a ninth- inning single against Japanese reliever Shigetoshi Hasegawa. Matsui said the pregame hype wasn’t a factor.

“It really didn’t influence me or anything like that,” he said.

Texas 16, Toronto 11 -- Juan Gonzalez and Carl Everett each homered twice, and Alex Rodriguez also homered to lead the Rangers at Toronto.

Boston 7, Kansas City 2 -- Nomar Garciaparra had three hits and Tim Wakefield (3-1) pitched six strong innings, and the host Red Sox handed the Royals their second consecutive loss.

Baltimore 11, Detroit 3 -- Jason Johnson (4-0) pitched five scoreless innings and Jerry Hairston drove in two runs at Detroit.

Minnesota 5, Tampa Bay 3 -- Corey Koskie homered and drove in three runs, and Kenny Rogers (3-1) gave up one earned run in seven-plus innings to help lift the Twins at Minneapolis.

Oakland 3, Chicago 2 -- Barry Zito (4-2) outpitched Bartolo Colon (2-2) at Chicago and the Athletics won their fifth consecutive game.