Hudson Pitches A’s Past Blue Jays, 6-4

Tim Hudson won his fifth consecutive decision and Jose Guillen homered twice, lifting the Oakland Athletics to a 6-4 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays Saturday at Oakland.

Mark Ellis hit a three-run homer for the A’s, who ended a three-game losing streak. The win enabled them to stay one game behind Boston in the wild-card race.

Hudson (12-4), who left with a bruised right wrist after getting hit by a line drive in the seventh inning, gave up one run and two hits with six strikeouts and three walks in 6 1/3 innings.

Hudson was struck on the top of the wrist by Dave Berg’s line drive leading off the seventh. The ball trickled away to the right side of the mound. He dropped his glove to field the ball with his left hand and threw the ball left-handed to first baseman Scott Hatteberg for the out.

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Minnesota 14, Kansas City 5 -- Torii Hunter drove in three runs for the second consecutive game and Doug Mientkiewicz, Corey Koskie, Jacque Jones and A.J. Pierzynski each had two RBIs at Kansas City, Mo., to help the Twins move within two games of the first-place Royals in the Central Division.

Carlos Beltran homered twice and drove in the Royals’ first three runs. He is batting .356 with three doubles, three triples, nine homers and 28 RBIs in his last 28 games.

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New York 5, Baltimore 4 -- Rookie Jack Cust fell down and was tagged out 10 feet from an uncovered home plate, ending a wild 12th-inning rundown at Baltimore. Jason Giambi hit his 35th homer with two out in the top of the 12th as the Yankees dealt the Orioles their sixth consecutive loss.

Cust walked with two out in the bottom half, and Larry Bigbie doubled to right-center. Cust slipped to the ground while rounding third and got caught in a rundown.

All Cust had to do to score the tying run was outrace third baseman Aaron Boone. As he started to run, he stumbled to the ground and was easily tagged out by Boone.

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Texas 12, Chicago 8 -- Todd Greene hit a three-run homer, Jason Jones and Hank Blalock hit two-run shots, and the Rangers rallied after wasting an early five-run lead at Arlington, Texas, to improve their record in August to a major-league best 11-4.

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Tampa Bay 5, Cleveland 3 -- At Cleveland, Jared Sandberg hit a two-run homer and Aubrey Huff had two RBIs to help the Devil Rays end the Indians’ four-game winning streak.