MINNEAPOLIS (AP) Masahiro Tanaka just needed to hit the road to find his groove again. Of course, that four-run cushion before he stepped on the mound was helpful, too.
The Yankees’ Japanese pitcher matched a season high with eight sparkling innings and Carlos Beltran hit a two-run homer to lift New York past the struggling Minnesota Twins 8-2 in Major League Baseball on Friday night.
Tanaka allowed one run and seven hits, recovering nicely from his rough outing last Saturday when he gave up five runs at home against Detroit. He is 3-1 with a 1.32 ERA in seven road starts – the second-lowest road ERA in the AL and third-lowest in the majors.
”There’s seasons where you do well at home and there’s season where you do better away on the road,” Tanaka said through an interpreter. ”Throughout my career it’s been like that. Maybe this season it’s been something like that but I don’t really look into that much.”
Tanaka (4-2) didn’t allow a walk for the fifth time this year, and the Yankees scored more runs than they had in his previous four starts combined.
”I think it’s important because it allows the pitcher to relax a little bit and every pitch isn’t the end of the world,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. ”To be able to give him seven runs pretty quickly is nice.”
The right-hander had all the run support he needed by the time he tossed his first pitch. Beltran connected against Pat Dean (1-3) in the first, and Rob Refsnyder and Didi Gregorius each drove in a run in the inning to give Tanaka an early 4-0 lead.
”Helped me out mentally obviously, but as a starting pitcher being on the mound you want to put up as much zeros as possible, and that’s what I was trying to do all night,” Tanaka said.
Tanaka’s compatriot Ichiro Suzuki drew closer to 3,000 hits when a pinch-hit single took him to 2,980 in Miami’s 5-1 win over visiting Colorado.
Adam Conley and four relievers combined on a one-hitter as Miami snapped Colorado’s four-game winning streak, with Nick Wittgren (2-1) getting the win.
Seattle’s Japanese pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma (6-5) went seven innings, allowing four runs on nine hits, as the Mariners won 8-4 at Boston. Franklin Gutierrez homered in his first two at-bats and drove in a career-high six runs in the win.
In Baltimore, Canadian Michael Saunders set career highs with three homers and eight RBIs to lift Toronto past the Orioles 13-3 for their fourth straight victory.
Saunders connected with two on against Mike Wright (3-4) in the first inning, added another three-run drive off Wright in the fourth and went deep against Ubaldo Jimenez with a man on in the sixth.
Batting in the eighth with the chance to tie the major league record of four homers in a game, Saunders bounced into a bases-loaded double play.
In St. Petersburg, Florida, Jeff Samardzija threw a four-hitter and San Francisco won its sixth consecutive game by beating Tampa Bay 5-1 on Pride Night before the biggest regular-season crowd at Tropicana Field in a decade – 40,135.
The Rays dedicated this year’s event to the victims of Sunday’s mass shooting in Orlando.
In other games, the Chicago Cubs beat visiting Pittsburgh 6-0, Texas won 1-0 at St. Louis, Arizona won 10-2 at Philadelphia, Atlanta won 5-1 at the New York Mets, Kansas City won 10-3 at home to Detroit, Cincinnati held on to beat Houston 4-2 away in 11 innings, Oakland beat the visiting Los Angeles Angels 3-2, Cleveland won 3-2 at home to the Chicago White Sox, the LA Dodgers beat visiting Milwaukee 3-2 in 10 innings, and Washington won 7-5 at San Diego.
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