Arlington, Texas ? Kevin Mench and his Texas teammates went to their strength Thursday: the long ball.

Mench hit three homers and Mark Teixeira had two as Texas hit eight home runs in a game for the second time this season, leading the Rangers to an 18-5 rout of the Los Angeles Angels.

Alfonso Soriano, Hank Blalock and David Dellucci also connected for the Rangers, who matched their team record for homers in a game.

“We were able to outslug them,” Mench said.

Texas split the four-game series after losing the first two games by a combined score of 18-4. The Rangers trail the Angels by 61â2 games in the AL West.

“I’m happy with how these guys responded,” Rangers manager Buck Showalter said. “They are one of the best teams in baseball. To beat them, we had to be firing on all cylinders.”

Mench hit a solo homer in the fifth inning against Joel Peralta and two-run homers in the sixth and seventh off Jake Woods. It was his fifth multihomer game, his second this season.

“It was a combination of things,” Mench said. “It was a hot day, there was a breeze, but we also put together some good at-bats.”

Teixeira took over the AL lead in homers with 22, two ahead of teammate Alfonso Soriano, who homered leading off the third inning, and the New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez. Teixeira hit two-run homers in the second and fifth innings. He has eight multihomer games, half of them this year.

Texas Rangers' Kevin Mench (28) and Alfonso Soriano (12) walk toward the dugout following Mench's two-run home run that scored Soriano in the sixth inning. The shot that came off Los Angeles Angels pitcher Jake Woods was Mench's third home run of the game in the 18-5 Rangers win Thursday in Arlington, Texas.

Texas also hit eight homers on May 21 in an 18-3 win over the Houston Astros and have a major league-leading 128 home runs this season.

“We’re glad to be back in the race,” Mench said. “We know it’s going to be a dogfight all the way. I think it’s going to come down to the last day.”

Chris Young (8-4) allowed three runs and five hits in five innings, struck out seven and walked one. Rookie Ervin Santana (2-3) gave up seven runs and seven hits in four innings.

Los Angeles went ahead in the first when Chone Figgins led off with a double and Maicer Izturis followed with a drive to right field that replays showed bounced off the top of the fence and off the back wall for what should have been a home run. First base umpire Tim Welke ruled the ball in play and Izturis ended up with a double that advanced Figgins to third.

After Angels manager Mike Scioscia argued in vain, Juan Rivera hit an RBI single, but Young stranded the bases loaded when he struck out Robb Quinlan.

“A lot of games are won or lost in the first inning,” Teixeira said. “If you give up seven, eight runs in the first, the game could have been over, so getting out of that inning giving up only one run was huge.”

Vladimir Guerrero and Garret Anderson had back-to-back homers in the third.

White Sox 6, Tigers 1

Detroit – Freddy Garcia pitched a five-hitter for his first complete game of the season and the White Sox finished off a three-game sweep of the Tigers.

Joe Crede and Carl Everett homered for Chicago in a game delayed 2 hours, 4 minutes at the start because of thunderstorms. With Garcia in control, the game itself took only 2:06.

The Tigers lost their fourth in a row. The White Sox picked up their first sweep in Detroit since 2002 and are 8-1 against the Tigers this season.

Athletics 6, Mariners 2

Oakland, Calif. – Dan Haren won his career-best sixth straight decision and Dan Johnson and Bobby Crosby homered to lead Oakland to its season-high seventh straight victory.

The A’s completed their second straight sweep after taking three games from San Francisco last weekend.

Indians 9, Orioles 3

Baltimore – Coco Crisp had three hits and drove in two runs to back a strong pitching performance by Jake Westbrook, leading Cleveland over Baltimore.

Jhonny Peralta had two hits, two RBIs and scored twice for Cleveland, which went 17-10 in June. The Indians have won nine of their last 11 on the road and five of six overall.