Gobble Pitches Royals Into First

Rookie Jimmy Gobble yielded one run in his second major league start, and Carlos Beltran homered and drove in three runs as the Kansas City Royals ended a four-game losing streak by beating the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 6-2, Saturday night at St. Petersburg, Fla.

The Royals, who won for only the fourth time in 12 games, moved a half-game ahead of Chicago in the Central Division a night after the White Sox took over the division lead for the first time since May 25, 2002.

Gobble (2-0) gave up seven hits, including Damian Rolls’ home run in the seventh. He struck out three and didn’t walk a batter in 6 1/3 innings. The left-hander has given up only one run in 12 1/3 innings in the majors.

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Oakland 7, Chicago 2 -- Ramon Hernandez homered twice and drove in a career-high five runs at Chicago to knock the White Sox out of first place in the Central Division.

The A’s, who have won 13 of their last 19 games, remained three games behind the West Division-leading Seattle Mariners.

Chad Bradford (6-3), who spent parts of three seasons with the White Sox before being traded for Miguel Olivo in December of 2000, pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings of relief for the win.

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Minnesota 8, Detroit 4 -- Jacque Jones hit a two-run, go-ahead double and Torii Hunter had a two-run homer in a four-run 10th inning at Detroit.

Chris Mears retired the first batter in the 10th, then walked Doug Mientkiewicz and Corey Koskie. Shane Loux entered and Jones greeted him with a liner to the right-center field scoreboard to drive in two runs.

Hunter followed with a long homer to left, his 21st, to give Minnesota an 8-4 lead.

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Boston 6, Baltimore 4 -- Kevin Millar hit the 10,000th home run at Fenway Park, a two-run shot in the eighth inning, to help the Red Sox rebound from a day-night doubleheader loss to the Orioles.

Fenway Park, which opened in 1912, joined Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium and the since-demolished Tiger Stadium as the only ballparks to have had at least 10,000 homers hit there.

Manny Ramirez hit a solo homer, his 100th in a Red Sox uniform to become the fastest player in club history to reach that plateau. It was his 1,388th at-bat. Jimmy Foxx did it in 1,390 at-bats.

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Toronto 5, Texas 3 -- Reed Johnson hit a go-ahead single in the eighth inning at Toronto. With one out, Eric Hinske doubled off Aaron Fultz (1-3) and Fultz intentionally walked Bobby Kielty. Rosman Garcia struck out pinch-hitter Dave Berg before Johnson singled.