Oakland Takes Minnesota

John Jaha hit a two-run homer to tie it and Ramon Hernandez followed an inning later with a go-ahead, two-run double as the Oakland Athletics beat the Minnesota Twins 5-3 Tuesday night.

The A's remained five games back of Boston, the AL wild-card leader and closed within 5 1/2 games of first-place Texas in the AL West. Oakland has 12 games remaining, including a three-game series at Texas this weekend.

Held scoreless for 14 innings by Minnesota pitchers, the A's broke through for three unearned runs in the sixth off starter Brad Radke, taking advantage of center fielder Jacque Jones' error.

In the seventh, Miguel Tejada and Eric Chavez hit successive singles off Hector Carrasco (2-3) and Hernandez, who had an error and a passed ball, doubled to the left-center gap to score them both.

Ron Mahay (1-0) pitched a perfect seventh for the victory. After a scoreless eighth by Tim Worrell, Jason Isrinhausen finished with a perfect ninth for his sixth save.

Radke allowed three runs none earned and seven hits in six innings.

The Twins broke up a scoreless game with three runs in the fourth. Todd Walker singled to start the inning and Ron Coomer followed with a run-scoring double.

Mike Oquist walked Matt Lawton and fanned Chad Allen on a wild pitch that allowed Coomer to go to third before Hernandez, the catcher, bounced a throw into center field for an error trying to catch Lawton stealing second. Coomer scored and Lawton reached third on the error before coming home on Terry Steinbach's two-out single.

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