Pitcher Gio Gonzalez won his third consecutive start as the Oakland Athletics cut their American League West deficit to 7 1/2 games with an 8-2 victory Sunday, taking two of three in their series with the division-leading Texas Rangers. Mark Ellis and Kevin Kouzmanoff homered for the A's off Colby Lewis (9-11), while Cliff Pennington snapped out of a 2-for-24 slide with two singles and a sacr1ifice squeeze bunt. Gonzalez (12-8) left with a 7-2 lead after throwing 65 of his 95 pitches for strikes in six innings on another hot day in Texas. The left-hander is 7-1 with a 2.10 ERA in 10 day games this season. Yankees 2, White Sox 1: At Chicago, rookie Ivan Nova set aside any worries he had about a Major League Baseball investigation and earned his first career win, and Marcus Thames hit another homer as New York edged Chicago. It was an impressive outing for Nova (1-0), who allowed one run and five hits with seven strikeouts and one walk in 5 2-3 innings. He outpitched Gavin Floyd (9-11) in his second start, a day after reports surfaced that the league is investigating him and a former minor league teammate for allegedly injecting each other with B-12 shots. The vitamin is not on baseball's list of banned substances. Thames led off the second with his fifth homer in five games and ninth overall. Royals 6, Indians 2: At Cleveland, Kila Ka'aihue hit a go-ahead double in the seventh inning to help Bruce Chen and Kansas City beat Cleveland. Chen (9-7) allowed two runs and six hits over six innings as the Royals avoided a three-game sweep. Mike Aviles blooped a one-out single to center off Fausto Carmona (11-13) and scored on Ka'aihue's drive into the left-center gap to put the Royals ahead 3-2. Mitch Maier and Brayan Pena each had two RBIs for Kansas City. Tigers 10, Blue Jays 4: At Toronto, Ryan Raburn hit two home runs and Rick Porcello pitched two-hit ball for seven innings to lead Detroit past the Blue Jays. Porcello (7-11) won consecutive starts for the first time this season. He walked none and struck out four. Raburn is batting .341 with eight homers and 21 RBIs in his past 23 games. Detroit opened the scoring in the first against Marc Rzepczynski (1-3) on an RBI double by Miguel Cabrera. Orioles 1, Angels 0: At Anaheim, California, Jeremy Guthrie allowed four hits while pitching into the ninth inning as two relievers helped complete Baltimore's six-game season sweep of struggling Los Angeles. Mariners 2, Twins 1: At Seattle, a wild pitch, a misplayed fly ball and a fielder's choice by Adam Moore in a two-run seventh inning helped Seattle beat Minnesota and avoid a three-game series sweep. Rays 5, Red Sox 3: At St. Petersburg, Florida, Carlos Pena and Carl Crawford homered to back James Shields and help Tampa Bay retain a share of first place in the AL East.
