Six of best for Rangers

ARLINGTON // The Texas Rangers blanked the Major League-leading Los Angeles Dodgers on the back of a strong pitching in a 6-0 inter-league victory. Starter Vicente Padilla (5-3) pitched five scoreless innings while Jason Jennings and Jason Grilli combined on the final four as the Rangers (35-25) recorded a shutout win for the second night in succession - the first time at home since 1981.

After holding off the Toronto Blue Jays 1-0 on Thursday, the Rangers got off to a good start against the Dodgers, scoring two runs in the third inning where Michael Young had an RBI single. Texas catcher Taylor Teagarden finished 2-for-4 with a two-RBI double in the sixth, where the Rangers scored three times to chase the Los Angeles starter Hiroki Kuroda. Kuroda struck out six but gave up eight hits and five runs in five-and-a-third innings. Juan Pierre and Casey Blake had two hits apiece for Los Angeles.

Luis Castillo dropped an Alex Rodriguez pop-up with two outs in the bottom of the ninth as the New York Yankees claimed an unlikely 9-8 victory over the New York Mets. With the Yankees trailing in the ninth, the Mets appeared to have won the game when A-Rod popped up to shallow right field on a 3-1 count. It should have been enough to give Francisco Rodriguez his 17th save of the season but the ball popped out of Castillo's glove, allowing Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira to come around to score the winning runs.

Ryan Howard's solo homer in the bottom of the ninth forced extra innings for the Philadelphia Phillies but Jacoby Ellsbury broke the tie with an RBI single as the Boston Red Sox recorded their fourth win in a row. The Toronto Blue Jays went down 7-3 to the Florida Marlins, who got their winning runs off a Cody Ross grand slam, while Brian McCann's four hits helped the Atlanta Braves to defeat the Baltimore Orioles 7-2.

* Reuters