Longoria, Crawford help Rays past White Sox

Evan Longoria and Carl Crawford homered, helping righthander Jeff Niemann remain unbeaten with a 5-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox last night.

Niemann (5-0) limited the White Sox to singles by Alex Rios and Gordon Beckham before giving up a solo homer to Mark Teahen leading off the eighth inning. He walked three and struck out five before Randy Choate and Dan Wheeler finished the four-hitter with a scoreless ninth.

The Rays snapped a three-game losing streak, improving baseball's best record to 33-15.

Royals 4, Red Sox 3

Brian Bannister (4-3) pitched six strong innings and David DeJesus drove in a pair of runs for visiting Kansas City. Boston had a five-game winning streak snapped.

Athletics 7, Orioles 5

Kevin Kouzmanoff doubled in three runs to cap a five-run eighth for visiting Oakland.

Cubs 1, Dodgers 0

Ted Lilly pitched seven scoreless innings and Tyler Colvin drove in the lone run with a double in the eighth for host Chicago.

"I got away with a few," Lilly said. "I made some decent pitches."

But ... "Maybe not the best I've thrown the ball," he said.

It was good enough, though. Barely.

Mike Fontenot led off the eighth with a triple down the rightfield line and came around on a one-out double down the line by Colvin, who went to third when rightfielder Xavier Paul had trouble picking up the ball and bumped into the wall.

"It's a tough little corner," Colvin said. "You've got the drain, a little spot where the ball can roll down."

John Ely (3-2), who grew up in suburban Homewood, Ill., held the Cubs to four hits in 71/3 innings.

Brewers 4, Astros 3

Rickie Weeks walked with the bases loaded to force in the winning run in the 10th inning to give host Milwaukee a comeback win.

Rockies 8, D-Backs 2

Seth Smith, Carlos Gonzalez and Ryan Spilborghs hit consecutive home runs in the seventh inning, and Troy Tulowitzki also homered as host Colorado had its first sweep this season.

Giants 5, Nationals 4

Freddy Sanchez hit a tiebreaking two-run single in the seventh inning after earlier getting hit in the face by a spiked cleat and Aubrey Huff added a solo home run as host San Francisco rallied.

Washington's Adam Dunn hit his 10th homer of the season but was denied No. 11 after umpires used instant replay to uphold their original ruling.

Cardinals 8, Padres 3

Albert Pujols hit his first home run and drove in his first runs in 12 games as visiting St. Louis avoided a sweep. Brendan Ryan tied a career high with four hits and rookie P.J. Walters won his first major league game.- AP