Michael Tucker tied a career-high with five RBIs as the Kansas City Royals roughed up Tim Hudson and beat the Oakland Athletics 11-6 Friday night to stop a four-game losing streak.
Tucker hit a three-run homer in the third against Hudson and added a two-run double in the eighth off Ricardo Rincon, matching his RBIs high, set for Atlanta at Cincinnati on April 30, 1997.
Carlos Beltran homered and drove in three runs.
Kansas City had lost nine of its previous 10 games against Oakland. The Royals (27-25) also had dropped five in a row at home since beating Baltimore on May 11 and had been 2-10 at Kauffman Stadium following an 11-0 start.
ORIOLES 8, RANGERS 1: Omar Daal allowed one run in eight innings, and the Baltimore Orioles kept up their assault on the Texas Rangers' pitching staff in an 8-1 victory Friday night.
Jeff Conine homered, David Segui hit a three-run double and Luis Matos had two hits and an RBI for the Orioles, who have scored 35 runs against the Rangers in four games over seven days.
Daal (4-5) has been the beneficiary of two of those outbursts — he was the winning pitcher last Saturday in a 10-3 rout of the Rangers. This time, he allowed seven hits, struck out five and walked none.
The left-hander missed the opportunity to earn his first complete game since 1999 with Arizona, when Orioles manager Mike Hargrove summoned Kerry Ligtenberg to pitch the ninth.
DEVIL RAYS 8, ANGELS 6: Damion Easley, mired in a bad slump, had three hits and three RBIs Friday night as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays came from behind to beat the Anaheim Angels 8-6 Friday night.
Dewon Brazelton pitched six innings to get his first major league victory.
The World Series champions dropped to 25-27, losing for the sixth time in their last nine games. The Angels, who went 19-7 last May, are 12-13 this month.
Easley, in a 2-for-39 skid, went 3-for-4 with a two-run single off John Lackey (3-5) that tied the score 4-all in the sixth. Carl Crawford followed with a go-ahead single.
YANKEES 6, TIGERS 0: Jose Contreras made an impressive pitch to stay in New York's rotation, allowing two hits in seven innings in his first career start as the Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers 6-0 Friday night behind two homers by Jason Giambi.
Contreras, who left Cuba and signed a $32 million, four-year contract with the Yankees in the offseason, got a one-start trial in the rotation in place of an injured David Wells.
But with a strong first start, Jeff Weaver's recent struggles and owner George Steinbrenner's public wishes for Contreras to join the rotation, the Cuban defector's stay might not be so brief.
The Yankees have won three straight following a season-high five-game skid, and coupled with Boston's loss in Toronto, they moved a half-game ahead of the Red Sox in the AL East.
INDIANS 7, WHITE SOX 3: C.C. Sabathia stayed in just long enough to get the win as Ben Broussard hit a two-run homer Friday night, sending the Cleveland Indians to a 7-3 win over the Chicago White Sox.
Sabathia (4-2) pitched for the first time since May 21 when he sprained his left ankle while covering first base and had to leave in a win over Detroit.
The left-hander went five innings, allowing three runs and five hits to remain unbeaten in his last eight starts. Four Cleveland relievers pitched one scoreless inning each to close it out.
Broussard's third homer capped a four-run fifth for Sabathia and the Indians, who got two RBIs apiece from Milton Bradley and Josh Bard.
MARINERS 6, TWINS 0: Joel Pineiro pitched a four-hitter and set a career high with 12 strikeouts as the Seattle Mariners beat the Minnesota Twins 6-0 Friday night.
Pineiro rebounded from poor outing last week against the Twins — he allowed 12 hits and six runs, to lead the AL West-leading Mariners to their fourth-straight win with his first shutout of the season and second of his career.
Pineiro (5-4) was 0-2 with a 4.95 ERA against Minnesota coming in. He gave up a hit to Jacque Jones with one out in the third then retired 13 straight before Dustan Mohr singled with two outs in the seventh — Mohr got thrown out making too wide a turn at first base. Piniero threw 121 pitches, 83 for strikes. He walked two.
Seattle has taken the first two of a four-game series against the AL Central-leading Twins, who won two out of three at Seattle last week.
BLUE JAYS 13 RED SOX 2: In Toronto, Vernon Wells hit a three-run homer and Carlos Delgado, Greg Myers and Frank Catalanotto also drove in three runs apiece as the Toronto Blue Jays handed the Boston Red Sox their first three-game losing streak of the season with a 13-2 win Friday night. Delgado went 3-for-4 with a walk and now has a major league-leading 55 RBIs. Wells is second with 52.
Rookie Reed Johnson scored four runs for the Blue Jays, who set a franchise record with their 20th win in May. The Blue Jays also matched a club record for wins in any month. They last reached that mark in Aug. 1989 when they went 20-9. Toronto leads the majors in runs, hits and extra-base hits. Boston is second in the majors in those categories.