Twins Rally for 11th Consecutive Win

Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau hit home runs and Michael Cuddyer supplied the aggressiveness on the base paths for the Minnesota Twins.

Cuddyer’s heads-up play tied the score in the eighth inning and the Twins went on to their 11th consecutive win, 6-5, over the host Kansas City Royals on Monday night.

Trailing, 5-3, the Twins scored three runs in the eighth inning on one hit, three walks, a hit batter, a throwing error by catcher John Buck and two wild pitches by Ambiorix Burgos.

With two outs and the Twins trailing by a run, Cuddyer broke for third on a pitch in the dirt and scored the tying run on Buck’s throwing error.

“I saw his glove that he was going to throw a split and I anticipated it going in the dirt,” Cuddyer said. “It didn’t kick as far as I thought it was going to kick, but I had already committed myself, just run, hope for the best, hopefully put some pressure on them and he made a bad throw.”

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Tampa Bay 3, Boston 0 -- All-Star Scott Kazmir (10-5) gave up two hits at St. Petersburg, Fla., and recorded his first career complete game.

Ty Wigginton homered twice and Russell Branyan also homered against Josh Beckett (10-4), who gave up three runs and seven hits in seven innings in trying to become the American League’s first 11-game winner.

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Baltimore 8, Chicago 1 -- Erik Bedard (9-6) gave up two hits in eight innings and the Orioles made the most of three errors during a four-run sixth inning at Chicago.

The only run surrendered by Bedard was Jermaine Dye’s 21st homer in the second inning, which ended the scoreless streak for the left-hander at 17 innings.

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Cleveland 5, New York 2 -- Jeremy Sowers (1-1), making his second major league start in front of the largest regular-season crowd at Cleveland’s Jacobs Field in nearly six years -- 42,706 -- gave up a two-run homer to Jason Giambi in the first inning but cruised over the next six innings.

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Texas 6, Toronto 1 -- Rookie John Rheinecker (4-2) gave up one run and five hits in seven innings and Mark DeRosa had three hits and three runs batted in at Arlington, Texas.

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Oakland 5, Detroit 3 -- Jay Payton hit his 100th homer, a three-run shot in the sixth inning, and Joe Blanton (8-7) pitched seven innings at Oakland to win for the third time in four decisions.