Oakland, California: Kansas City’s Raul Ibanez homered to break his own franchise record for oldest Royals player to clear the fences — and that single shot was enough for the visitors to beat Oakland 1-0 on Friday and cut the Athletics’ division lead to a single game.
The A’s are narrowly ahead of the Los Angeles Angels, who won at Tampa Bay.
Among the day’s other games, Milwaukee won at St Louis to open a three-game gap between the National League Central rivals, while Baltimore widened their lead atop the American League East with a tight win over Seattle.
Ibanez, aged 42, connected in the fifth inning to help the Royals win at Oakland for the first time in two years, having lost all three at the Coliseum last season.
Kansas City starter Jeremy Guthrie (7-9) struck out six in six innings to guide the Royals to their third straight win, staying within four games of AL Central leader Detroit.
Los Angeles’ Mike Trout and Josh Hamilton homered to lead the Angels to a 5-3 win at Tampa Bay.
Trout hit his 25th homer of the season” a two-run shot that helped the visitors to a 3-0 lead after one inning.
Los Angeles went ahead 4-1 on Hamilton’s solo homer in the third. The slugger was later hit by a pitch and left the game with a bruised left middle finger.
The Rays loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom of the ninth to threaten a comeback, but two strikeouts by Huston Street and then a flyout ended it.
Milwaukee pitcher Wily Peralta (13-6) won his 13th game of the season to tie for the NL lead, guiding the Brewers to a 7-4 win at St. Louis.
He did it against opposing starter Adam Wainwright, who also has 13 wins, along with L.A. Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw.
Aramis Ramirez hit a home run and an RBI double, while Jonathan Lucroy had a bases-clearing in a four-run sixth inning that put Milwaukee up by six.
Baltimore’s Chen Wei-yin won his fifth consecutive start and had a season-high eight strikeouts to lead the Orioles to a 2-1 victory over Seattle.
Chen (12-3) allowed one run and one walk over 7 1-3 innings.
Baltimore has won nine of its past 11 games and extended its lead in the AL East to 2-1/2 games. An RBI single by Manny Machado in the third snapped the Orioles’ scoreless streak at 19 innings,
San Francisco’s Ryan Vogelsong pitched his second career complete game to lead the Giants past the New York Mets 5-1.
Vogelsong (6-8) faced 28 batters, just one over the limit, allowing only two hits and one walk. Vogelsong, who had lost his previous five starts, needed only 102 pitches in the game that flew by in 2 hours, 6 minutes.
Hunter Pence emerged from a form slump with a triple and three RBIs for the Giants.
