Baseball roundup
Garcia wins 6th straight as White Sox top Twins MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Freddy Garcia won his sixth straight decision, leading the White Sox to a 7-3 victory over the Twins on Monday to salvage a split of the four-game series.
Scott Podsednik, Joe Crede and Chris Widger homered to help Chicago win despite resting three regulars and improve to 25-12, the best mark in the majors.
Unlike Sunday night’s win, in which they gave up seven runs in the first inning and later pulled off a triple play to rally, the White Sox never trailed this time.
Garcia (6-1) pitched 6 2-3 reliable innings, giving up three runs and seven hits, including a home run by Torii Hunter.
Red Sox 11, Orioles 1
BALTIMORE – Josh Beckett allowed two hits in seven innings, Wily Mo Pena homered and had four RBIs as the Red Sox beat the Orioles for the 12th straight time.
Jason Varitek homered and scored a career-high four runs for the Red Sox, whose 12-game run against Baltimore is its longest since the Orioles moved from St. Louis in 1954. This season, Boston has outscored Baltimore 56-20 in winning seven straight.
Boston has also won seven in a row at Camden Yards, and is 45-18 in Baltimore since the start of the 1999 season.
Celebrating his 26th birthday, Beckett (5-1) faced only one batter over the minimum, allowing a first-inning homer to Miguel Tejada and a sixth-inning single to Javy Lopez, who was erased by a double play.
Rangers 4, Yankees 2
NEW YORK – Kevin Millwood pitched seven crisp innings and Mark Teixeira hit a tiebreaking single in the eighth. Brad Wilkerson homered to begin the comeback from a two-run deficit, and Texas snapped an eight-game losing streak against the Yankees that dated to last season.
Giants 10, Astros 1
HOUSTON – Barry Bonds said any kind of hit will do.
Then the San Francisco slugger made good on that statement, lining an RBI double to right in the third inning of the Giants’ victory over Houston for his first hit in six games.
Yet Bonds’ streak without a home run reached seven games and he remained stuck at 713 in the tiny section of Texas listing 713 as its area code. He remained one homer shy of tying Babe Ruth for second place on the career list.
Bonds went 1-for-3 with the double, a walk, a called strikeout and a popup before Jason Ellison replaced him in left field in the seventh. Mike Matheny drove in two runs and Feliz matched his career high with five RBIs for the Giants a day after they lost a weekend series to the rival Los Angeles Dodgers.
Braves 11, Marlins 8
ATLANTA – Brian McCann homered and had a career-high five RBIs, Andruw Jones drove in four runs and the Braves rallied from a 5-0 deficit to beat Florida.
Dodgers 5, Rockies 4
DENVER – Nomar Garciaparra singled home the go-ahead run in the seventh and Brett Tomko won for the first time at Coors Field.
Garciaparra extended his hitting streak to 10 games with an RBI single off rookie Ramon Ramirez, who hadn’t given up a run in his first 15 1-3 innings.
covering 11 appearances but allowed three runs in just 1-3 of an inning.
Ramirez (2-1) replaced starter Josh Fogg to start the seventh and issued a leadoff walk to Tomko. Rafael Furcal followed with a single and one out later, Garciaparra singled to right and Tomko scored to break a 2-all tie when Hawpe’s throw pulled Danny Ardoin off the plate just enough to miss the tag.
Ray King came in and surrendered a two-run double to J.D. Drew that made it 5-2.
Tomko (5-1) allowed three runs, two earned, on five hits and one walk in seven innings.