A's hammer Angels, take top spot in AL West
ANAHEIM, Calif. — With all the tight games the Los Angeles Angels and Oakland Athletics have played against each other the past six years while winning three AL West titles apiece, no one on either club could have expected this kind of outcome in their first meeting this season.
Daric Barton, Jack Hannahan and Emil Brown accounted for six of Oakland's runs with homers in a 14-2 rout of Los Angeles on Monday night. The Athletics entered with only 12 home runs through their first 26 games.
"Coming in here, the weather was nice and warm and the ball was carrying pretty good in batting practice," manager Bob Geren said after the A's broke a first-place tie with the Angels. "So the conditions were such that there might be some balls flying out of the park. Fortunately, it was us making the good contact."
Oakland's run total was the highest by a visiting team at Angel Stadium since Sept. 22, 2004, when Seattle won 16-6.
Frank Thomas, who drove in Oakland's first run with his first triple since April 24, 2002, added an RBI single in the fifth. He was removed for a pinch-runner in the seventh after chasing former Chicago White Sox teammate Jon Garland with a leadoff double.
Alas, the Big Hurt didn't get a chance to go for the cycle. All he would have needed was a home run, and he's got 516 of those.
It was a great way for the A's to start the 19-game season series, but Geren didn't put any extra emphasis on this four-game set despite the fact that it was against the defending AL West champions.
"We didn't even have a talk about it at all, honestly," Geren said. "Whenever you play a team for the first time, there's a lot of work to be done and a lot of meetings. I mean, we know it's the Angels and they're the team to beat and most people obviously picked them as the team to beat. So you'd like to have a good performance against a good team like that, but nothing more than that."
Yankees 5, Indians 2
Mike Mussina earned his 253rd win, tying Hall of Famer Carl Hubbell on the career list, and visiting New York made the most of its five hits.
Mussina (3-3) allowed two runs and seven hits in five innings, just long enough to catch Hubbell for 41st place.
Orioles 3, White Sox 3,
At Chicago, the Orioles and White Sox were tied when play was suspended after 11 innings because of a sloppy field full of mud and puddles.
The game will resume at the beginning of the 12th inning later this season, but no date was set. All the statistics from Monday count.
Diamondbacks 5, Astros 3
Representing the potential tying run with two outs in the eighth inning, Lance Berkman struck out on five pitches in Arizona's win over Houston in Phoenix.
Mark Reynolds hit a two-run double for the Diamondbacks, who improved their major league-leading record to 19-7.
Miguel Tejada had an RBI double in the eighth for the Astros, who have lost three straight after a season-best six-game winning streak.
Reds 4, Cardinals 3
Edwin Encarnacion had a pair of RBI doubles and made a standout play at third base in the seventh inning to preserve a one-run lead in Cincinnati's victory at St. Louis.
Giants 4, Rockies 0
Matt Cain got an early lead and his teammates held it, helping host San Francisco's hard-luck pitcher to his first win of 2008 with a 4-0 victory over the slumping Rockies.
