Baltimore ? George Steinbrenner isn’t paying $200 million in player salaries to watch his New York Yankees sputter along in last place.

The outspoken owner waited all of two weeks before demanding that his team start winning — or else.

Miguel Tejada hit his eighth career grand slam, and the Baltimore Orioles roughed up Kevin Brown and completed a three-game sweep of New York with an 8-4 victory Sunday. The Yankees (4-8) have dropped four straight and eight of 10 overall.

“Enough is enough. I am bitterly disappointed, as I’m sure all Yankee fans are by the lack of performance by our team,” Steinbrenner said in a statement issued immediately after the game.

“It is unbelievable to me that the highest-paid team in baseball would start the season in such a deep funk. They are not playing like true Yankees. They have the talent to win, and they are not winning. I expect Joe Torre, his complete coaching staff and the team to turn this around.”

Torre, who held a brief team meeting after the game, did not take Steinbrenner’s comments lightly.

“He’s right. What are you going to say? I’m not going to dispute that,” the manager said. “If I try to defend what we’ve been doing, you’d have to check my sanity. This stuff out here is not pretty. We have to make it better. No question.”

Melvin Mora homered for the Orioles, who took a 6-0 lead in the second inning and coasted to their sixth victory in seven games. Baltimore improved to 5-1 against New York this season after their first sweep of the Yankees since 2000.

Ruben Sierra and Alex Rodriguez homered for the Yankees, whose four-game losing streak matches their longest skid of 2004. New York, which went 14-5 against Baltimore a year ago, has been outscored by the Orioles, 47-26, this season.

Baltimore's Miguel Tejada rounds third base after hitting a grand slam against the Yankees. The Orioles won, 8-4, Sunday in Baltimore to complete a sweep of the weekend series.

The Yankees concluded a 1-5 road trip that included two losses in three games against their archrivals, the Boston Red Sox. That was bad enough, but Steinbrenner no longer could contain his anger after watching New York get swept by a team mired in a run of seven straight losing seasons.

“What did you expect him to say, we’re playing great? Keep up the good work?” Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter said. “We haven’t been playing well. It’s easy to see. We just have to turn it around. That’s basically it.”

Said Torre: “We just need to get a little spark back. We’re flat right now, we’re on our heels, and we’re not playing well.”

The Orioles, on the other hand, are performing far better than expected.

Tejada went 3-for-4 with two doubles, raising his batting average to .375 and his AL-leading RBI total to 18. He went 6-for-12 with eight RBIs in the series.

Red Sox 3, Devil Rays 1

Boston — Tim Wakefield gave the Red Sox their third straight strong start to lead Boston to a three-game sweep of Tampa Bay, which went hitless for the last seven innings. The Red Sox won their fourth consecutive game, scoring only in the third inning off Scott Kazmir (0-1) on Edgar Renteria’s second homer and Jay Payton’s two-run single. Wakefield (2-0) allowed one run and four hits in six innings, improving to 10-0 against the Devil Rays since they beat him April 16, 1999, in Boston. The knuckleballer’s five strikeouts pushed him past Cy Young and into third place on Boston’s career list with 1,343.

Indians 2, Twins 1

Cleveland — Travis Hafner was hit by a pitch from J.C. Romero (0-1) with the bases loaded in the eighth inning to force in the go-ahead run, and Cleveland rallied. The Twins had their six-game winning streak snapped and failed to get their first three-game sweep in Cleveland since June 14-16, 1991.

Rangers 6, Blue Jays 5

Arlington, Texas — Hank Blalock and Michael Young each hit a two-run homer, and Chris Young had his first solid start of the season to lead Texas. David Dellucci’s two-run triple off Josh Towers (1-1) helped the Rangers build a 6-0 lead after two innings. Chris Young (1-1) allowed only one hit through the first five innings, but didn’t make it through the sixth.

Athletics 7, Angels 6

Oakland, Calif. — Marco Scutaro hit a two-run homer, and Oakland finally got some offense in a victory over Los Angeles. Jason Kendall hit a two-run double for the Athletics, who scored two runs in the first inning — matching their total from the first 19 innings of the series.

Mariners 5, White Sox 4

Chicago — Ichiro Suzuki and Raul Ibanez homered, and Adrian Beltre had a tiebreaking, two-run single to lead Seattle. Randy Winn had three singles, and Gil Meche (1-0) allowed three runs and five hits in 62/3 innings as Seattle snapped an eight-game losing streak against the White Sox.