Sabathia stays perfect as Brewers gain ground on Cubs

CC Sabathia improved his perfect record with the Milwaukee Brewers, pitching another complete game Monday night in a 9-3 victory over the visiting Houston Astros.

Sabathia also hit a 2-run single in a 5-run fourth inning. He is 8-0 with a 1.60 ERA and 5 complete games in 9 starts for the Brewers since they acquired him from Cleveland in a July 7 trade.

Last year's AL Cy Young Award winner has won 11 straight decisions overall.

Sabathia threw 130 pitches. The big lefty struck out nine, walked two and gave up 11 hits as the Brewers pulled 2 games ahead of idle St. Louis in the NL wild-card race. They also moved within 5 games of the first-place Cubs in the NL Central.

Maddux traded to Dodgers: Greg Maddux is headed back to the Los Angeles Dodgers. San Diego and Los Angeles agreed to a trade that puts the 353-game winner in a pennant race again, according to a person familiar with the deal who spoke on condition of anonymity Monday night because no announcement had been made. The trade was expected to be announced today.

American League

Athletics 3, Twins 2: Kirk Saarloos pitched 3 shutout innings after Justin Duchscherer left with a hip injury, and Oakland defeated host Minnesota.

Mark Ellis homered, and Kurt Suzuki had 2 RBI for Oakland, which got a nice effort from Saarloos after he was called up from Triple-A Sacramento earlier in the day to bolster a struggling A's bullpen that was 1-5 over its last 18 games.

Duchscherer departed with right hip pain after throwing a pitch to Joe Mauer with two outs in the third and Oakland leading 1-0.