MAJOR LEAGUES
Oakland beat the Los Angeles Angels 5-3 on Friday to slice the gap between the American League’s top two teams to just one game, with Athletics pitcher Sonny Gray ending a month-long losing streak to steer the hosts to an important victory.
In the National League, San Francisco ended Washington’s 10-game winning streak, Pittsburgh tightened the NL Central race by defeating leader Milwaukee, and the Los Angeles Dodgers maintained their lead in the NL West by downing the New York Mets.
Photo: USA Today
Oakland’s Gray (13-7) allowed six hits over 8-1/3 innings to set up the win, and Sean Doolittle recorded the final two outs to seal it.
Coco Crisp hit a leadoff home run for the 15th time in his career, and Stephen Vogt added a solo shot for Oakland in the opener of a three-game series. Sam Fuld hit a go-ahead triple in the sixth inning.
Washington were looking to establish a new franchise record with an 11th straight win, but were never in the hunt against San Francisco, who cruised to a 10-3 victory.
Giants rookie Joe Panik hit his first major league home run and recorded four hits for the first time.
San Francisco starter Tim Hudson (9-9) allowed one earned run over 5-1/3 innings for his first win in more than a month.
Pittsburgh’s Josh Harrison homered and drove in a career-high five runs to power the Pirates to an 8-3 win at Milwaukee.
In other games, it was:
‧ Yankees 4, White Sox 3
‧ Cubs 4, Orioles 1
‧ Rays 8, Blue Jays 0
‧ Phillies 5, Cardinals 4
‧ Astros 5, Indians 1
‧ Mariners 5, Red Sox 3
‧ Royals 5, Rangers 3
‧ Braves 3, Reds 1, 12 innings
‧ Padres 5, Diamondbacks 1
‧ Twins 20, Tigers 6
‧ Marlins 13, Rockies 5
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