Yankees Complete Sweep of Orioles

Alex Rodriguez homered and Hideki Matsui had two hits during an eight-run fifth inning, and the New York Yankees hammered the Baltimore Orioles, 18-5, Thursday night at Baltimore to complete a three-game sweep.

Enrique Wilson homered and drove in four runs, and Tony Clark also had four runs batted in for the Yankees, who outscored the Orioles 41-17 in the series. It was only the fourth time in franchise history that New York scored as many as 41 runs in a three-game series.

The damage took place at the expense of former Yankee first base coach Lee Mazzilli, now a rookie manager with Baltimore.

Miguel Tejada, Rafael Palmeiro and Jose Leon homered for the Orioles, who have lost seven games in a row. Palmeiro’s home run was the 535th of his career, moving him past Jimmie Foxx into 12th place on the all-time list.

New York trailed, 3-0, before getting nine hits in its most productive inning of the season. The last time the Yankees scored as many as eight runs in an inning was May 8, 2003, when they put up 10 at Seattle.

The Yankees finished with a season-high 21 hits and had 51 in the series.

Tampa Bay 5, Minnesota 4 -- Rocco Baldelli hit a go-ahead, three-run homer and reliever John Halama threw 3 1/3 scoreless innings to lead the Devil Rays at St. Petersburg, Fla.

Baldelli’s first homer since May 2 overcame a 4-2 deficit in the fourth, and Tampa Bay went on to win for the sixth time in seven games.

Chicago 9, Texas 0 -- Mark Buehrle scattered nine hits over seven innings, and Juan Uribe homered twice to lead the White Sox to their second consecutive shutout over the Rangers at Chicago. Buehrle (5-1) won his fourth start in a row.

Cleveland 9, Seattle 5 -- Jake Westbrook (4-2) managed to make it through five innings, giving up four runs and seven hits in five innings at Cleveland as the Indians ended their season-high losing streak at seven games.

Oakland 15, Boston 2 -- Eric Chavez and Scott Hatteberg homered at Boston to lead the Athletics to their best offensive output of the season. Boston’s winning streak ended at five games after it gave up a season-high 17 hits.