May, Royals Beat Rangers

ARLINGTON, Texas â€”  Julius Matos and Angel Berroa hit two-run homers in a five-run third inning and the Kansas City Royals beat the Rangers, 8-2, Sunday night, completing their first three-game sweep at Texas since 1980.

The Royals (51-41) are the first team to follow a 100-loss season with 50 wins by the All-Star break. They lead the Central Division by seven games over the Chicago White Sox, their largest division lead since 1980, when they won the West by 13 games.

Darrell May (4-4) yielded one run and seven hits over five innings to win his fourth start in a row. The left-hander, who gave up only four hits in beating the Angels, 4-0, in his last start, has a 1.61 earned-run average during his winning streak.

Matos homered to open the scoring with one out in the third. Beltran followed with a single and scored on Ken Harvey’s single one out later.

Berroa then hit a liner that just cleared the wall in left for his ninth homer, giving Kansas City a 5-0 lead.

Texas had won nine of 16 before being swept at home by the Royals for the first time since Aug. 18-20, 1980. The Rangers are last in the West Division at 38-55, 20 games behind Seattle.

May threw 71 of his 106 pitches in the first three innings -- 25 to Juan Gonzalez in two at-bats -- but the Rangers didn’t score until Mark Teixeira’s 431-foot homer led off the fourth.