BOSTON (AP)—David Ortiz remembers visiting Fenway Park with Minnesota and seeing empty seats.

“The only sellout was when Pedro was pitching,” he said. “Otherwise, it was a regular crowd.”

Pedro Martinez is long gone from the Boston Red Sox, but the sellout streak that started in a game he pitched figures to continue for a long time.

Boston’s regular-season sellout streak, which began on May 15, 2003, is slated to reach a major league record 456 when the Red Sox host Tampa Bay on Monday night. On Wednesday, the Red Sox tied the record set by the Cleveland Indians at Jacobs Field from June 12, 1995, to April 2, 2001, a run that ended on a 42-degree day with a 7-4 loss to the Chicago White Sox.

Fenway Park has the fewest seats in the major leagues, with a capacity of 37,400 for night games and 36,984 for day games. During the streak, 16,298,532 fans streamed into Fenway.

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MILWAUKEE (AP)—Mike Cameron and Jeff Suppan were each brought to Milwaukee for their postseason experience, and they both had the same message Thursday night.

“Keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing until whenever, Sept. 28 or whatever it is,” Cameron said. “Then you look up and see where you’re at. I would think everyone here knows that this is a pretty damn good baseball team.”

The stumbling Brewers just haven’t shown it on this homestand. Will Venable hit his first career homer and the San Diego Padres beat Milwaukee 5-2, handing the Brewers their fourth straight loss.

With all of the NL’s playoff hopefuls taking the day off, maybe Milwaukee should have, too, even with principal owner Mark Attanasio in the crowd. The Brewers’ wild-card lead was trimmed to four games over Philadelphia, and they fell five games behind NL Central-leading Chicago with 22 games left.

“I’m sure everyone knows the circumstance, where we are, whatever, but it don’t matter if you don’t play good baseball,” said Cameron, who signed with Milwaukee in the offseason and is being counted on to provide defense and leadership down the stretch after the Brewers collapsed last year.

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TORONTO (AP)—The Minnesota Twins would have been a lot happier if this marathon road trip had ended one city sooner.

Jesse Litsch threw a four-hit shutout and the Toronto Blue Jays completed a three-game sweep with a 9-0 victory over the Twins on Thursday night.

Minnesota wrapped up a season-long 14-game road trip at 5-9 and fell 1 1/2 games behind the idle Chicago White Sox in the AL Central. The Twins have lost nine of 12.

“We’ve got to get home and see if we can right the ship,” manager Ron Gardenhire said.

Minnesota started its trip on the West Coast with four against the Angels, three in Seattle and four at Oakland. A day off in Toronto before facing the Blue Jays only made the journey feel even longer.

“We were here for four days but it feels like we were here for a week,” outfielder Denard Span said. “The days did seem longer. I woke up in the morning and it seemed like time just kept going. It seemed like it took forever.”

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP)—Scott Kazmir did his part to get the Tampa Bay Rays back on track.

The All-Star left-hander allowed one hit in six scoreless innings, and the Rays’ bullpen weathered ninth-inning home runs by Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez to beat the Yankees 7-5 and avoid a three-game sweep on Thursday night.

Willy Aybar homered and drove in three runs for the AL East leaders, who avoided a three-game sweep and extended their lead in the division over second-place Boston to 3 1/2 games. The Red Sox, who face Tampa Bay six times over the next two weeks, were idle.

The Yankees’ slim playoff hopes were dealt another blow. They trail the Rays by 11 games in the division and Boston by 7 1/2 in the wild-card race.

“It’s good to keep them in our rear view mirror because they’ve played well against us,” Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said. “To lose three in a row here would not have been any fun at all.”

Kazmir (11-6) limited the Yankees to Cody Ransom’s fifth inning double, walked five and struck out seven, but a high pitch-count (98) prevented him from going deeper into the game. Ransom also singled off reliever Trever Miller in the seventh for New York’s second hit.

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