Mark Teixeira finally homers, Yankees extend dominance of Twins with 6-4 victory for sweep

Teixeira homers, Yankees top Twins 6-4 for sweep

MINNEAPOLIS — Mark Teixeira ended a 23-game homerless drought and the New York Yankees completed a season sweep of the Minnesota Twins with a 6-4 victory Thursday. Teixeira connected on the first pitch of the fifth inning. It was his 21st homer of the season and first in 96 at-bats, dating to June 12 against the Mets.

Mariano Rivera picked up his 23rd save for the Yankees, who have won eight straight on the road and beat the Twins all seven times they met this season.

Francisco Liriano (4-9) gave up six runs — three earned — on seven hits in 5 1-3 innings for the Twins, who have lost 18 of their past 24 games against the Yankees.

Twins All-Star first baseman Justin Morneau was 0 for 4 and went 0 for 10 in the series.

New York moved Alfredo Aceves from the bullpen for a spot start in place of the injured Chien-Ming Wang. Aceves gave up four runs — two charged to him when reliever David Robertson walked Denard Span and Matt Tolbert with the bases loaded in the fourth — on four hits in 3 1-3 innings.

Robertson’s walks were the only hiccups for the sterling New York bullpen. The relievers combined to allow two hits and no runs over the final 5 2-3 innings. Jonathan Albaladejo (4-1) pitched 1 2-3 hitless innings for the win.

It was another shaky outing for Liriano, who has been nowhere near the dominating performer he was before Tommy John surgery 2½ years ago. Manager Ron Gardenhire said Liriano “is still learning to pitch with less stuff than he had before the surgery.”

With the bases loaded and one out in the second, Liriano got ahead 0-2 on Cody Ransom. But rather than give in, Ransom kept grinding, working the count full and then taking a walk to score Alex Rodriguez for a 1-0 lead.

Derek Jeter added an RBI single later in the inning to make it 3-0, with all three runs unearned thanks to an error by second baseman Tolbert.

Liriano needed 55 pitches to get through the first two innings, two days after the Yankees squeezed 57 out of Scott Baker in the first two frames.

The Yankees gave two runs back in the second on errant throws. Aceves threw a ball away on a pickoff attempt at first base and Ransom had a throwing error at third base as the Twins cut the deficit to 3-2.

Ransom and Brett Gardner had RBI singles in the fourth, and Robertson steeled himself after the two run-scoring walks. He got Joe Mauer to ground out with the bases loaded to end the inning and keep the Yankees in the lead, 5-4.