Santana Takes Charge for Twins

Johan Santana isn’t winning games these days. He’s changing them.

Santana struck out 10 in seven innings and the Minnesota Twins hit three home runs in a 10-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Friday night at Minneapolis.

Santana (4-3) gave up five hits and struck out at least one batter in all seven of his innings to win his fourth consecutive start.

“He’s a handful because he knows how to pitch,” White Sox slugger Jim Thome said. “When he’s on the mound, he changes the whole complexion of the game.”

Justin Morneau, Tony Batista and Joe Mauer homered for the Twins, who roughed up Jon Garland for their third consecutive victory and fifth in six games as they try to climb out of a big hole left by a 9-15 April.

Garland (2-2) was shaky for the White Sox, giving up seven runs and 11 hits in 5 1/3 innings, proving no match for Santana, who has been outstanding in May.

The left-hander reached double-digit strikeouts for the third time in four starts and the 26th time in his career. He has given up only four runs in three starts this month.

“He was as good as you can do it,” Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire said. “He kept them off balance and kept attacking them.”

New York 2, Oakland 0 -- Alex Rodriguez and Bernie Williams homered, and Chien-Ming Wang (3-1) pitched three-hit ball for eight innings to lead the Yankees past the Athletics at New York.

“He threw the ball incredible,” Rodriguez said of Wang. “That’s the best he’s thrown all year.”

Rodriguez, booed in his first two at-bats after striking out, pulled an off-speed pitch from Barry Zito (2-3) over the wall in left-center, near the 399-foot sign. Before the homer, Rodriguez was batting .210 against Zito -- including a grand slam in New York’s season-opening 15-2 victory at Oakland.

Tampa Bay 4, Toronto 1 -- Seth McClung (2-4) pitched seven innings at St. Petersburg, Fla., and the Devil Rays held off the Blue Jays to win consecutive games for the first time in nearly a month.

Baltimore 6, Kansas City 5 -- Corey Patterson homered, had four runs batted in and scored the tiebreaking run in the eighth inning to lead the host Orioles to victory. Todd Williams (1-0) pitched two innings of one-hit relief and Chris Ray got three outs for his ninth save.

Texas 6, Boston 0 -- Hank Blalock homered and Kameron Loe (2-3) earned his first career shutout as the Rangers beat the Red Sox in a game that was shortened to 5 1/2 innings because of rain at Boston.

Detroit 5, Cleveland 4 -- Kenny Rogers (6-2) won his third consecutive start, and Craig Monroe and Marcus Thames hit home runs to lead the Tigers to a victory at Cleveland.