Snow’s Bat Leads Angels Past O’S

American League

J.T. Snow tied career highs with four hits and four RBIs Thursday night as the California Angels put a damper on Cal Ripken’s 35th birthday with a 6-4 victory over the Baltimore Orioles in Anaheim, Calif.

Snow hit a two-run homer in the fourth inning off Jamie Moyer and a tie-breaking two-run single in the seventh off Arthur Rhodes (2-5), helping the Angels increase their A.L. West lead to 8-1/2 games and giving Marcel Lachemann his 100th victory as Angels manager.

Ripken, who played in his 2,119th consecutive game, went 1 for 2 with a walk, a sacrifice fly and a run scored. He is 11 games from tying Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played.

Red Sox 13, Athletics 6 Oakland

John Valentin drove in five runs with a homer, double and single and Mo Vaughn hit his 32nd homer as Boston beat Oakland for their sixth straight win.

Brewers 5, Twins 3 Milwaukee

B.J. Surhoff backed a solid outing by right-hander Ricky Bones with two home runs in Milwaukee’s victory over Minnesota.

Royals 5, Rangers 3 Kansas City, Mo.

Tom Goodwin had a triple and a two-run single and Jason Jacome shook off a bad start to win his third straight decision as Kansas City stopped Texas.

Clearing the bases

The California Angels acquired outfielder/first baseman Mike Aldrete from the Oakland Athletics in exchange for minor-league outfielder Demond Smith. … In its 5-3 loss to Kansas City, Texas commited more than one error for the first time in 40 games. … Boston is 21-3 in August, and has 125 extra-base hits in its last 32 games.