Thomas Leads A’s in Rout of Red Sox

Frank Thomas hit his 476th home run, Nick Swisher connected three batters later and Esteban Loaiza completed a perfect August by winning his fourth consecutive decision to lead the Oakland Athletics past the beat-up Boston Red Sox, 9-0, on Monday night at Oakland.

Pinch-hitter Adam Melhuse hit a two-run homer in the eighth, and Bobby Kielty and Jay Payton each drove in two runs for the AL West-leading A’s, who increased their division lead to 6 1/2 games over the Angels.

Thomas hit his 28th homer of the year leading off the seventh against Keith Foulke.

Melhuse hit his fourth home run of the year, the first pinch-hit homer by an Athletics player since Scott Hatteberg had a pinch-hit homer on July 21, 2004, at Seattle.

Loaiza (8-7) went 4-0 in August for a season-best winning streak, equaling his best stretch from 2005. Kielty and Payton each hit run-scoring doubles in the third, and Thomas also drew a bases-loaded walk. Kielty had a fourth-inning RBI single, and Payton added a sacrifice fly in the inning.

Boston was without designated hitter David Ortiz, who was a late scratch and will travel back to Boston today to undergo tests for an irregular heartbeat.

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at Cleveland 6, Toronto 4: Grady Sizemore homered, doubled twice and scored three runs to help Paul Byrd (9-6) win. Ryan Garko added a pair of RBI doubles off A.J. Burnett (6-6) as the Indians improved to a major league-best 14-5 since Aug. 9.