Baseball-Highlights of Sunday's MLB games

(Adds late games) April 20 (The Sports Xchange) - Highlights of Sunday's Major League Baseball games. - - - Twins 8, Royals 3 Phil Hughes pitched a solid six-plus innings and helped the Minnesota Twins salvage the final game of a three-game series with an 8-3 victory over the Kansas City Royals. Hughes (1-1) gave up three runs on nine hits, with one walk and three strikeouts. Twins third baseman Trevor Plouffe had two doubles, a triple, two RBIs and two runs scored to lead the offense as Minnesota (9-9) avoided being swept and snapped a five-game Kansas City (9-8) winning streak. - - - Brewers 3, Pirates 2 (14 innings) Khris Davis' first home run of the season, leading off the top of the 14th inning, lifted the Milwaukee Brewers to victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Major League-best Brewers got all their runs on solo homers as Mark Reynolds connected as well as Ryan Braun who forced extra-innings with a ninth inning blast. The benches and bullpens cleared in the third when Milwaukee's Carlos Gomez slid into third base with a triple and exchanged words with Pittsburgh's Gerrit Cole, prompting a skirmish and the ejection of Cole, Pirates outfielder Travis Snider and Brewers bench coach Jerry Narron. - - - Athletics 4, Astros 1 The Oakland Athletics had plenty of pitching and more than enough hitting on to complete a three-game series sweep of the Houston Astros. Oakland starter Jesse Chavez (1-0), who entered the game with a 1.35 ERA, picked up his first win of the season and third baseman Josh Donaldson had a two-run homer and two doubles for the A's. The A's (13-5) have won eight of the last 10 while Houston (5-14) has dropped seven in a row. - - - Dodgers 4, Diamondbacks 1 Yasiel Puig hit a three-run home run to lead the Los Angeles Dodgers to a victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks. Jamey Wright received the victory in relief of Los Angeles (12-7) starter Josh Beckett, who pitched five innings for his longest outing of the season after only pitching eight games last year because of thoracic outlet syndrome. - - - Yankees 5, Rays 1 (12 innings) Carlos Beltran hit a two-run single in the 12th inning where the New York Yankees broke out with four runs to blow by Tampa Bay. Alfonso Soriano also added an RBI in the inning for the Yankees (11-8), who split a four-game series with Tampa Bay (9-10). - - - White Sox 16, Rangers 2 The Chicago White Sox blasted Texas pitching for a dominating victory. Jose Abreu and Conor Gillaspie homered and finished with three RBIs while White Sox (9-10) starting pitcher Erik Johnson gave up one earned run in five innings to blow away the Rangers (11-8). - - - Mets 4, Braves 3 (14 innings) Struggling right fielder Curtis Granderson lofted a sacrifice-fly in the bottom of the 14th inning to lift the New York Mets to a marathon win over the Atlanta Braves. Granderson, who was 0-for-6 in the game and is batting .127, helped the Mets (9-9) avoid a sweep in the three-game series and move back to .500. The Braves (12-6) lost for just the second time in their past 10 games. - - - Nationals 3, Cardinals 2 Denard Span drove in the winning run in the ninth inning on a sacrifice-fly with the bases loaded to break a 2-2 tie and lift the Washington Nationals over the St Louis Cardinals. Stephen Strasburg struck out nine St Louis (11-8) batters over six innings of the no-decision before Rafael Soriano pitched the ninth and got the win for Washington (11-8). - - - Tigers 2, Angels 1 Rookie Nick Castellanos lined a two-out single to center in the sixth inning to score the tie-breaking run in the Detroit Tigers' victory over the error-prone Los Angeles Angels. Rick Porcello tossed seven innings to get the win for the Tigers (9-6) while the Angels (8-10) made four errors and allowed two unearned runs for Detroit. - - - Giants 4, Padres 3 Buster Posey put the struggling Giants on the board with a two-run homer in the first and Tim Lincecum limited the Padres to three runs on seven hits over six-plus innings as San Francisco snapped a three-game losing streak. Angel Pagan added a two-run single in the second to give San Francisco a quick 4-0 lead and they held off San Diego (9-10). The four runs were one fewer than the slumping Giants (11-8) had scored in their last four games combined. - - - Reds 8, Cubs 2 Homer Bailey scattered three hits over six shutout innings as the Cincinnati Reds continued to dominate the Chicago Cubs. Zach Cozart went 3-for-5 with three RBIs as the Reds (8-10) compiled 15 hits and have now won 15 of 20 games over the Cubs (5-12). - - - Marlins 3, Mariners 2 The Miami Marlins used an instant-replay reversal to help keep alive an eighth-inning rally on their way to a victory over the Seattle Mariners. Marlins (9-10) left fielder Christian Yelich was called out on a play at home plate, but had the play reversed to tie the score 2-2, allowing Adeiny Hechavarria to hit a sacrifice-fly for the game-winning RBI. Seattle (7-11) suffered their sixth straight defeat. - - - Indians 6, Blue Jays 4 David Murphy's three-run double in the sixth inning vaulted Cleveland into the lead for good as the Indians beat the Toronto Blue Jays. Murphy's hit turned a 4-2 deficit into a 5-4 lead for Cleveland (8-10), and Josh Outman pitched 1/3 of an inning of relief against Toronto (10-9) and picked up the win to improve to 3-0. - - - Red Sox 6, Orioles 5 Dustin Pedroia scored on a throwing error and Boston rallied for a walk-off victory against the Baltimore Orioles. The Red Sox (8-9) came back from a 5-0 deficit to tie the game with three runs in the sixth and two in the seventh before Pedroia came home in the ninth after outfielder David Lough threw wildly to home plate. Baltimore fell to 8-9. - - - Phillies 10, Rockies 9 The Philadelphia Phillies rallied back from a deficit to win a wild game and avoid a three-game series sweep. The Phillies trailed 6-3 before scoring two runs in the sixth inning, three more in the seventh and two in the eighth in a slug-fest that saw both teams tally 15 hits. Ryan Howard went 4-for-5 with three RBIs for Philadelphia (8-10) while Colorado (10-10) got five RBIs from Justin Morneau. - - - (Editing by John O'Brien)