Devil Rays Unleash Offense to Beat A’s

Tampa Bay found its offense against Oakland on Saturday night.

Pete LaForest and Carl Crawford each drove in two runs and Aubrey Huff stole home to lead the Devil Rays over the Athletics, 7-4, at St. Petersburg, Fla.

“We’ve been talking about putting up runs against this team and we did,” Manager Lou Piniella said.

The Devil Rays had scored only 13 runs in losing six in a row to the A’s.

Huff stole home in the seventh inning. He broke for the plate as pinch-hitter Terry Shumpert got into position for a bunt, and Ricardo Rincon’s pitch went behind Shumpert, allowing Huff to score.

“It’s just a freak thing,” said Huff of his seventh career stolen base, his second this year. “I was just lucky to get one regular steal.”

Jose Guillen homered and drove in two runs for the American League West-leading Athletics, who remained two games ahead of the Seattle Mariners.

Rich Harden (4-4) gave up five runs and eight hits in 3 2/3 innings. He has given up 25 runs and 34 hits over 27 1/3 innings in his last six starts.

Chicago 8, Cleveland 5 -- Esteban Loaiza (19-6), tied with Toronto’s Roy Halladay for the major league lead in victories, gave up five runs and eight hits in seven innings and struck out 10 at Chicago to help the White Sox remain tied with Minnesota for the AL Central lead.

Paul Konerko tied the score, 5-5, with a home run in the sixth inning, then hit a two-run single in the seventh.

Minnesota 5, Texas 2 -- A.J. Pierzynski hit a two-run homer and Brad Radke (11-10) gave up two runs and five hits in seven innings at Minneapolis.

Shannon Stewart had three hits for the Twins, who won their fourth in a row and improved to 31-17 since the All-Star break. Eddie Guardado earned his 33rd save.

Baltimore 3, Seattle 1 -- Tony Batista homered and drove in two runs at Baltimore.

Jamie Moyer (17-7) lost to Baltimore for the first time since May 30, 1989.

Seattle dropped 1 1/2 games behind Boston in the wild-card race.