Twins back on winning track

The Minnesota Twins and Los Angeles Angels were both in the market for a starting pitcher as the trade deadline approached.

Both teams were interested in Arizona's Dan Haren, and the Angels were the team that landed him in a move they hoped would help them catch the Texas Rangers in the AL West.

The Twins settled on moving Brian Duensing from the bullpen to the starting rotation, and that's worked out pretty well so far.

Duensing struck out six in 8 innings and Jason Kubel hit a 3-run homer to get host Minnesota rolling in a 7-2 victory over the Angels on Friday night.

Duensing (7-1) allowed 1 run and 7 hits to improve to 4-0 since moving into the rotation July 23. His ERA dropped to 1.92 as the Twins bounced back from an 11-0 loss to the White Sox on Thursday night.

"It's always nice to be able to fill from within your organization and not have to give up a lot of prospects to go get someone," Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire said. "When you have a guy like Duensing, we know he's out in the bullpen and does a good job out there ... but we also know he's someone we can go to if something happens, and that's very important."

The Angels haven't had as much luck with Haren (1-4), who got knocked around in his sixth start for Los Angeles. He gave up 7 runs and 11 hits in 7 innings with 3 strikeouts.

Giants 6, Cardinals 3: Rookie Madison Bumgarner pitched into the eighth inning and San Francisco got home runs from Pablo Sandoval and Aubrey Huff, sending host St. Louis to its season-worst fifth straight loss.

Albert Pujols hit his 398th career homer for the Cardinals, who led the NL Central by a game after a dramatic sweep of the Reds on Aug. 11, but have dropped five of six since then and began the night 31/2 games behind Cincinnati. Pedro Feliz singled and scored twice and handled two chances at third base in his debut with St. Louis.

Buster Posey doubled twice with an RBI off Jake Westbrook (1-1) for the Giants, who have won two straight after dropping four of the previous five to stay in the thick of the wild-card picture.

Tigers 6, Indians 0: Armando Galarraga continued his season-long dominance of Cleveland, pitching 7 shutout innings to lead host Detroit Tigers to victory. Galarraga was facing the Indians for the first time since his near-perfect game on June 2.