Twins Extend Yankee Losing Streak to Six

After being thoroughly outplayed by the undermanned Minnesota Twins in their sixth consecutive defeat, it’s clear that everything is going wrong for the New York Yankees.

Lew Ford homered, tripled and drove in three runs to lead the Twins to a 6-3 victory over the slumping Yankees on Friday night at Minneapolis.

Improvement will have to wait at least another day because the Yankees (27-27) squandered a 3-0 lead for their first six-game skid since dropping seven in a row in September and October 2000.

The Yankees have scored three runs or fewer in every game of the losing streak and are 0-19 this season when doing so.

The Twins lost three starters to injury during their 13-inning victory over Cleveland on Thursday. Nick Punto strained his hamstring and is on the disabled list, Justin Morneau strained his left elbow and Joe Mauer pulled a groin muscle.

Even without Mauer and Morneau in the lineup, the Twins roughed up Mike Mussina (5-4) with eight hits, including two home runs, to win their third in a row and sixth in their last eight.

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Kansas City 2, Texas 1 -- Runelvys Hernandez pitched six solid innings, leading the resurgent Royals past the Rangers at Kansas City, Kan., for their first four-game winning streak in 21 months. Coming off a surprising three-game sweep of the Yankees, the Royals raised Buddy Bell’s record as manager to 4-0.

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Toronto 6, Oakland 2 -- Roy Halladay pitched seven sharp innings at Oakland to earn his league-leading ninth win, and the Blue Jays ended the A’s season-high four-game winning streak.

Halladay (9-2), who yielded one run and six hits, is 5-0 with a 0.68 earned-run average in his last five starts. He tied Florida’s Dontrelle Willis for the major league lead in wins.

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Chicago 6, Cleveland 4 -- Orlando Hernandez (6-1) came off the disabled list to get his first win since May 11. Activated before the game at Chicago, he had control problems, hitting four batters and squandering a 4-0 first-inning lead. He gave up four runs and six hits in six innings, including a game-tying three-run homer to Coco Crisp in the third.

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Detroit 5, Baltimore 3 -- Jason Johnson (4-4) gave up three runs -- one earned -- and six hits in eight-plus innings, striking out six and walking one at Detroit. The Tigers (26-26) have won six of seven -- including a three-game sweep last weekend at Baltimore -- to reach .500 this late in the season for the first time since Sept. 8, 2000.

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Tampa Bay 6, Seattle 1 -- Aubrey Huff hit a three-run homer to help the Devil Rays end a five-game losing streak with a rare road win. The Devil Rays, who had lost their last six on the road, are still only 4-21 away from home.