Yankees top Orioles to regain AL East lead

BALTIMORE: Alex Rodriguez hit his 300th home run with the Yankees, Russell Martin and Steve Pearce also homered, and New York regained sole possession of first place in the AL East by defeating Baltimore 8-5 on Friday night.
The Yankees built a 7-0 lead in the fifth inning against rookie Wei-Yin Chen (12-9) and held on for their third win in nine games. New York had lost eight of 11 to the Orioles, including the opener of this four-game series.
Adam Jones, Robert Andino and Manny Machado homered for the Orioles, who got three hits from Nate McLouth but missed a chance to move ahead of the Yankees for the first time since June 7.
Rodriguez chased Chen with a two-run drive in the fifth — the 645th home run of his career. A-Rod, who also singled, extended his hitting streak to 11 games — his longest run since a 12-gamer in 2009.
Phil Hughes (14-12) allowed three runs, two earned, in six innings to break a streak of five straight road losses since June 15.
Rays 3 Rangers 1, 11 innings: In St. Petersburg, Florida, Ben Zobrist’s home run in the bottom of the 11th inning lifted Tampa Bay over Texas.
Zobrist’s 16th homer came off Mark Lowe (0-1) after a leadoff walk to B.J. Upton.
Wade Davis (3-0) got the win after striking out five of the six hitters he faced in the 10th and 11th innings.
The Rays’ fifth win in six games featured a total of 29 strikeouts for both teams.
Texas starter Derek Holland struck out a career-high 11 while giving up only two hits and two walks in eight innings.
Evan Longoria’s fourth-inning homer, his 11th, was the first hit off Holland, who was trying to win a fourth straight start for the first time in his career.
Rays starter Jeremy Hellickson pitched six innings, giving up four hits including a home run to Michael Young in the fifth inning. It was Young’s seventh home run and his third in the last five days.
Royals 7 White Sox 5: In Chicago, Lorenzo Cain hit two home runs, including a tie-breaking, two-run shot in the ninth inning, as the Kansas City Royals beats the Chicago White Sox 7-5.
Salvador Perez also hit a two-run homer for the Royals, who won their sixth straight against the White Sox.
Chicago hit three home runs: Alexei Ramirez hit a two-run shot and Dewayne Wise and A.J. Pierzynski hit solo shots homers.
Kelvin Herrera (2-2) pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the eighth inning for the Royals.
Johnny Giavotella led off the ninth with a single off Addison Reed (3-2). Cain followed with a deep home run to left center, giving the Royals a 7-5 lead. His seventh home run of the season gave him his first career two-homer game.
Greg Holland pitched the ninth for his 12th save in 14 chances.
Athletics 6 Mariners 1: In Seattle, George Kottaras hit a three-run homer in the fourth inning and the Oakland Athletics chased Felix Hernandez early in a 6-1 victory over the Seattle Mariners.
Hernandez (13-7) threw 96 pitches in just 4 2-3 innings, his shortest outing since May 16 when he went 3 2-3 innings at Cleveland. He gave up five earned runs, 11 hits — matching his season high — walked one and struck out four.
It was the second straight loss for the 2010 Cy Young Award winner. He had been 9-1 with a 1.62 ERA in his previous 15 starts since June 17, with five shutouts, including a perfect game on Aug. 15.
The victory broke the A’s three-game lopPinch-hitter Alberto Callaspo drove home pinch-runner Peter Bourjos with a two-out single in the ninth inning, and the Los Angeles Angels beat the Detroit Tigers 3-2 for their ninth win in 10 games.
Kendrys Morales had a triple, a double and a one-out single that started the ninth-inning rally for the Angels, who have won 13 of 16 overall to surge back into the AL wild-card race.
Erick Aybar beat out a slow two-out grounder against Octavio Dotel (5-3), advancing Bourjos to second. Callaspo then pinch-hit for slumping All-Star Mark Trumbo and drove a rolling grounder past Detroit shortstop Jhonny Peralta into left field, scoring the speedy Bourjos.
Max Scherzer pitched eight outstanding innings for Detroit, but Ervin Santana matched him into the seventh for Los Angeles.

BOSTON: Edwin Encarnacion hit one of Toronto’s three homers, Henderson Alvarez broke his six-game winless streak and the Toronto Blue Jays prolonged the misery of the Boston Red Sox with a 7-5 win on Friday night.
The Red Sox were hoping for a boost from their return home after going 1-8 on a West Coast trip that left them just one game ahead of the last-place Blue Jays in the AL East. Now Boston is clinging to fourth place by the very slim margin of .4532 to .4525.
The night began poorly as the start of the game was delayed by rain for one hour, 18 minutes.
When it began, Alvarez (8-12) found the right opponent to snap out of the six-game stretch in which he was 0-5 with a 7.67 ERA. He allowed two runs and four hits in 6 1-3 innings.