Heredia Pitches In to Help Out Athletics

When his time finally came, Gil Heredia remembered just what to do Saturday.

Heredia pitched three scoreless innings of relief, and Johnny Damon hit a tiebreaking single with two outs in the eighth inning to lead the Oakland Athletics to their 16th victory in 19 games, 5-4 over the Chicago White Sox at Chicago.

A’s starter Mark Mulder, in search of his eighth consecutive win, was ineffective and had to come out after four innings because of upper back spasms.

Heredia (7-8), who was taken out of the rotation July 26 after making 18 starts, stepped in after pitching only one relief inning since.

“Mentally, it was a lot harder than it was physically,” Heredia said. “Rusty is all in the mind.”

Heredia gave up only two hits and had one strikeout to improve to 6-0 lifetime against Chicago.

“I told him he was going to come up big for us sooner or later, and to hang in there. Today was the day,” Oakland Manager Art Howe said. “It’s nice to know you have a guy like that.

“He gave us three big zeros.”

Jason Giambi added a two-run single for the A’s, who lead the race for the wild card and are a major league-leading 27-9 since the All-Star break.

Minnesota 6, Tampa Bay 4--The Twins broke an eight-game losing streak as they got two home runs from Corey Koskie in a much-needed victory at Minneapolis.

Kyle Lohse won for the first time in seven starts and Brian Buchanan went four for four with a home run for the Twins, who are 10-26 since the All-Star break and trail Cleveland by 4 1/2 games in the AL Central.

Lohse (4-5) didn’t give up a hit after the first inning and retired his last 13 hitters. The rookie pitched six innings, giving up one run, two hits and three walks.

Boston 5, Baltimore 1--Mike Lansing, who is batting .344 since the All-Star break, drove in four runs with a three-run homer and a single, and four Red Sox pitchers held the Orioles to four hits at Boston.

Casey Fossum, making his first major league start, gave up three hits before loading the bases with two outs in the fifth.

Rich Garces (5-1) got Brian Roberts to end the threat, then pitched a scoreless sixth to help Boston earn its third victory in 10 games and its second in three games since Joe Kerrigan replaced Jimy Williams as manager.

Kansas City 8, Detroit 4--Raul Ibanez hit a pinch-hit home run to highlight a six-run eighth inning as the Royals rallied to win at Detroit.

Kansas City trailed 4-0 after three innings, but scored two runs in the sixth and used six consecutive hits in the eighth to score six more.

Ibanez, hitting for Dave McCarty, hit a 413-foot homer down the right-field line to give the Royals a 5-4 lead.

Texas 12, Toronto 5--Ivan Rodriguez made up for his tough day in the field by hitting a grand slam in the Rangers’ eight-run ninth inning at Toronto.

Rodriguez gave up four stolen bases for the first time in nine years, but he came through with his bat as Texas ended a five-game losing streak. Toronto closer Billy Koch (2-4) gave up six runs and four hits in two-thirds of an inning to blow his fifth save in 32 chances.