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By The Associated Press

CLEVELAND (AP) — Asdrubal Cabrera’s leadoff home run in the fourth broke a tie game, and the Cleveland Indians defeated the Chicago White Sox 4-3 on Tuesday in the first game of a day-night doubleheader.

Fausto Carmona (7-15) allowed three runs in six innings and won for the first time since Aug. 17.

Travis Hafner and Kosuke Fukudome also homered off Gavin Floyd (12-12), who hasn’t won since Aug. 29. Chicago has lost eight of its last nine games.

The teams, who were eliminated from the AL Central race last week when Detroit clinched the division, are battling for second place. The Indians lead the White Sox by 2½ games.

Hafner’s two-run homer in the first gave Cleveland the lead, but Chicago tied the game in the second on Adam Dunn’s RBI double and Alejandro De Aza’s run-scoring single.

Cabrera’s home run put Cleveland ahead and was his 24th of the season. Cabrera, who entered Saturday’s game against Minnesota in an 0-for-20 slump, has eight hits in his last 13 at-bats. He has homered in back-to-back games.

Fukudome homered with one out in the fifth.

Carmona struck out three and walked two. Relievers Joe Smith, Vinnie Pestano and Chris Perez, who recorded his 35th save, blanked Chicago over the final three innings.

Chicago’s first four hitters reached against Carmona in the second. Singles by A.J. Pierzynski and Alex Rios started the inning. Dunn, batting .165 when the game began, slapped a double down the third base line that scored Pierzynski. De Aza’s single to right tied the game.

De Aza added an RBI groundout in the sixth. Continued…

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CHICAGO — Nick Blackburn earned his first win in a month, Jason Kubel had a pair of RBIs and the Minnesota Twins beat the Chicago White Sox 3-2 today to sweep a brief two-game series behind some outstanding pitching.

Minnesota won the opener Tuesday night 1-0 when Francisco Liriano held the punchless and reeling White Sox hitless. Last-place Chicago has now lost 17 of 21 as it heads to the West Coast for a nine-game road trip.

Blackburn (2-4) followed up Liriano’s gem by holding the White Sox to four hits and a run in 6 2-3 innings, including Alex Rios’ solo homer in the third that tied the game at 1-1.

John Danks (0-5), a 15-game winner a year ago, gave up eight hits and three runs over eight innings for Chicago in taking yet another loss with little run support.

Minnesota forged ahead with two runs in the sixth inning.

Denard Span singled and Matt Tolbert reached on a bunt single when Chicago second baseman Omar Vizquel didn’t cover first after third baseman Mark Teahen fielded the ball. Span moved to third on a fly ball and scored on Kubel’s sacrifice fly, and after Michael Cuddyer was walked intentionally, Rene Tosoni delivered an RBI single to make it 3-1.

Chicago got an unearned run in the eighth when Alexei Ramirez hit a one-out double off Glen Perkins and moved to third on a passed ball before Adam Dunn walked. Matt Capps relieved and gave up Paul Konerko’s sacrifice fly before retiring Carlos Quentin on a pop.

Capps gave up a single and hit a batter in the ninth before retiring Juan Pierre on a fly ball to end the game and get his fifth save in six chances.

The Twins struck with a first-inning run when Span walked, moved up on a sacrifice bunt and Kubel hit a two-out RBI single.

Blackburn opened with a win in his first start of the season April 3 and was winless in four starts since. In his last outing, he gave up eight hits and five earned runs in 3 1-3 innings against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Notes
Kubel, who homered Tuesday night for the only run, has 69 RBIs in 72 games against the White Sox. … Drew Butera’s fifth-inning hit snapped an 0-for-22 skid. … Rios had three hits for Chicago, which is 1-9 in its last 10 home games. … The game time was 2 hours, 30 minutes, or 21 minutes longer than Tuesday night.

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Chicago Sun-Times’ Joe Cowley:

The company line was spewed throughout the weekend.

General manager Ken Williams talked about talent and the ‘‘ability to turn this around and turn it around quickly.’’ He made it seem like it couldn’t get any lower.

On Tuesday night, it did. Lower by about 6 feet after Minnesota Twins pitcher Francisco Liriano — he of the 9.13 ERA heading into the series against the Sox — no-hit the hapless South Siders in their own backyard 1-0. A hammer, a few nails, some dirt on top and a headstone.

Rest in peace, you $125 million pile of dung.

Not since Torii Hunter made catcher Jamie Burke road-kill in 2004 have the Sox been this embarrassed at home. And it came at the hands of the Twins again.

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Also from the Sun-Times:

Minnesota Twins left-hander Francisco Liriano rose to a new high. The sinking White Sox plum- meted to another low.

Liriano, who never had thrown a complete game in his pro career, threw a no-hitter Tuesday against the slumping South Siders, the latest downturn in a horrific start to the season.

‘‘That’s the way we roll, I guess,’’ said Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, whose team lost 1-0 at U.S. Cellular Field to fall into last place in the American League Central at 11-20.

The only way the Sox have rolled this season is downhill.

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Daily Herald’s Mike Imrem:

Now that the White Sox’ record is 11-20, maybe it’s OK to seriously consider whether a baseball team can lose an entire season in little more than a month

The bottom keeps getting lower for the Sox. Like, the team that is supposed to be “All in” this year, as the marketing campaign proclaims, made all outs Tuesday night.

As if being 9½ games out of first place after 30 games wasn’t bad enough for the Sox, they lost 1-0 to Minnesota in Game 31 and Twins pitcher Francisco Liriano no-hit them.

“I was asking people what to say,” Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said afterward. “This was the first (no-hitter against the Sox) in my career (as a manager).”

It isn’t the kind of first that anybody likes to be on the losing end of, but it has been that kind of early season for the Sox. The team that already was playing badly enough couldn’t get a hit against a pitcher that came in with a 9.13 earned-run average.

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 Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rogers:

Like the 12-steppers say, before you can fix a problem you have to admit you have one.

The White Sox have been in denial. But Francisco Liriano, he of the 9.13 earned-run average, may have just done them a very painful favor.

When you can’t get even one hit off Liriano, especially after a 4-15 stretch in which you have scored all of 50 runs, you have a problem. A big problem.

Liriano’s out-of-nowhere no-hitter on a chilly Tuesday night, before a crowd of 20,901 at U.S. Cellular Field, was not one of baseball’s true gems. It included six walks, four in the first four innings. But as Sox manager Ozzie Guillen points out, it’s still one for the history books — and the Twins hope it will jump start their woeful season

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ESPN Chicago’s Doug Padilla:

The Minnesota Twins’ Francisco Liriano turned a matchup too ugly for attention into a thing of relative beauty Tuesday night against the Chicago White Sox.

The left-hander drew all the focus by pitching the first no-hitter of the 2011 season in a matchup of two down-on-their-luck teams.

At least the 1-0 final score was representative of the offensive struggles from both clubs.

Just how backward was this rags-to-riches contest? Liriano, a noted strikeout pitcher, was dumbfounded that his first career no-hitter and complete game came on a night when he walked six and struck out only two.

Liriano didn’t know he had a no-hitter going until the eighth inning. In fact, he had walked so many White Sox batters that he had no idea he was throwing a no-hitter until the moment of truth was nearly at hand. His suspicions were aroused in the eighth inning.

“When everybody was walking away from me and nobody was talking to me I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ ” Liriano said.

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The Tampa Bay Rays keep adding to the worst start in franchise history, but insist they’re not overly concerned.

Given their recent matchups when facing Edwin Jackson(notes), the Rays might have a difficult time earning their first win of the season and spoiling the Chicago White Sox’s home opener Thursday.

Tampa Bay has batted a miserable .136 and been outscored 22-7 during its 0-5 start. The Rays haven’t managed more than five hits in any game and have been held to one run in four contests.

One of those lowly performances was Wednesday’s 5-1 loss to the visiting Los Angeles Angels. B.J. Upton(notes) hit his second homer in as many games, and manager Joe Maddon held Manny Ramirez(notes) out of the lineup after he started the season 1 for 16.

“How many games have we’ve played? We’ve got plenty of time,” said Ramirez, who will miss Thursday’s contest against his former team for personal reasons.

Without Ramirez, the Rays are hoping to bounce back at U.S. Cellular Field, where they had a combined 22 runs and 24 hits while winning the final two of a three-game series last April.

Tampa Bay, though, is scheduled to face Jackson (1-0, 3.00 ERA), who became the third pitcher to no-hit the Rays in less than a year on June 25 while with Arizona. The right-hander, who played for Tampa Bay from 2006-08, held on for a 1-0 victory despite walking eight batters and throwing 149 pitches – the most in a nine-inning game in five seasons.

In his only other previous matchup against Tampa Bay in 2009, Jackson allowed three runs and six hits over eight innings in a 5-3 win for Detroit.

Jackson enters this game after yielding three runs and striking out seven in an 8-3 win at Cleveland on Saturday. The White Sox (3-2) seemed to give him plenty of support after batting .314 and scoring 40 runs in their first five games.

They had 18 hits during Wednesday’s 10-7 win in 12 innings in Kansas City after slugger Adam Dunn(notes) underwent an emergency appendectomy Tuesday night. The designated hitter, who homered in his White Sox debut, is expected to miss at least five games.

Carlos Quentin(notes) had a go-ahead two-out double in the ninth inning before the Royals tied it, then hit another double to open the 12th. Quentin also had his second home run of the season during a four-hit afternoon.

The White Sox might not need Quentin’s or Dunn’s help against David Price(notes) (0-1, 5.14), who is 0-3 with a 5.00 ERA in three career matchups with Chicago. The left-hander struck out seven in Friday’s season opener against Baltimore, but allowed four runs over seven innings in a 4-1 defeat.

“I felt good. But when you’re going against another team’s No. 1 and give up four runs, you’re going to lose,” said Price, who was 19-6 with a 2.72 ERA and finished second in the AL Cy Young Award voting in 2010. “I’ve got to get better.”

After losing six of eight matchups with the White Sox in 2009, the Rays claimed last season’s series by a 4-3 margin.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Chicago White Sox designated hitter Adam Dunn underwent an emergency appendectomy Tuesday night and will miss at least five games.

The team said Dunn felt discomfort during Kansas City’s 7-6, 12-inning victory Tuesday and was taken to a hospital after the game. He was expected to travel with the team to Chicago after a Wednesday afternoon game.

Dunn scored a run and was 0 for 4 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch against the Royals.

Dunn is hitting .286 with one home run and needs 45 homers to reach 400. The offseason acquisition signed a four-year, $56 million contract with the White Sox.

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Mark Buehrle (Photo Credit: Getty Images, By: Jared Wickerham)

The Kansas City Royals defeated the Chicago White Sox, capping a 12-inning marathon on Tuesday night. On Wednesday the White Sox will look for revenge after a short turnaround.

The White Sox and Royals are slatted to play at 1:10 (CST), roughly 14 hours after ending their Tuesday game.

Kansas City (4-1) lost its season opener, but it has shown a flair for late-inning dramatics since.

The Royals won for the third time on a walk-off hit and for the fourth time in their final at-bat after Melky Cabrera’s RBI single in the 12th inning lifted them to a 7-6 win over the White Sox (2-2) on Tuesday.

“These first five games have been the funnest five games I ever played in my life,” said Billy Butler, whose two-run homer tied it 6-all in the eighth. “Hopefully we can get off to a good lead and just cruise to a victory.”

It was Kansas City’s second straight win in extra innings. On Sunday, Matt Treanor hit a three-run homer with two outs in the 13th of a 12-9 victory over the Angels.

While the Royals, who haven’t won five in a row since Sept. 7-11, 2009, are hitting well under pressure, White Sox relievers continue to struggle late in games.

Chris Sale blew a save opportunity and Tony Pena took the loss Tuesday. Chicago’s bullpen has given up 14 runs, 22 hits and three home runs in 12 1-3 innings.

The White Sox will try to earn a split of the series before heading home as they hand the ball to Mark Buehrle (1-0, 6.00 ERA), who received plenty of support in his first start.

The left-hander gave up four runs and eight hits in six innings of a 15-10 win over Cleveland on Friday. At one point, the White Sox led 14-0.

“You’d love to get that many runs, but you know it’s not going to happen every time,” he said.

Buehrle would appreciate some support against the Royals after he went 1-2 with a 3.76 ERA in four starts against them last season. Chicago scored one run while he was on the mound in three of those starts.

Buehrle, who lost both visits to Kauffman Stadium, is 21-11 with a 3.57 ERA in his career against Kansas City.

He’ll try to cool off Melky Cabrera, who had three hits and three RBIs Tuesday and is hitting .325 with 14 extra-base hits against the White Sox. Cabrera, though, is 8 for 14 with a double and a home run against Buehrle.

The Royals will counter with Jeff Francis (0-0, 1.29), who was impressive in his Kansas City debut, giving up five hits, including a solo home run, over seven innings of Friday’s 2-1 victory over the Angels.

The 30-year-old missed the entire 2009 season and part of 2010 after surgery on his throwing shoulder. He went 4-6 with a 5.00 ERA with the Rockies last year.

The left-hander is 0-1 with a 6.75 ERA in two starts against the White Sox. This is the first time he’s faced them since 2008.

Copyright 2010 by STATS LLC and The Associated Press. STATS LLC and The Associated Press contributed to this article. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and The Associated Press is strictly prohibited.

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