DETROIT \u2014 Jose Ramirez hit a tie-breaking, two-run homer in the seventh inning after\u00a0Tarik Skubal\u00a0was replaced and the surging\u00a0Cleveland Guardians\u00a0swept the slumping\u00a0Detroit Tigers\u00a0with a 3-1 win on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Cleveland has won seven straight to close within 3 1\/2 games of the AL Central-leading Tigers with a little more than a week left in the regular season. The teams are scheduled for three more games Sept. 23-25.<\/p>\n
Detroit has lost six of its last seven games and 15 of 22, turning an 11 1\/2-game cushion into a lead that isn’t comfortable.<\/p>\n
Returning from an injury scare last week, Skubal gave up one run, seven hits and struck out nine over six innings.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0reigning AL Cy Young Award\u00a0and pitching Triple Crown winner was replaced by right-hander Troy Melton in the seventh in a 1-all game. Nine pitches later, Ramirez broke the tie with a 368-foot shot to right.<\/p>\n
Cleveland’s Jhonkensy Noel hit a game-tying solo homer in the fourth.<\/p>\n
Tanner Bibee (11-11) gave up one run and four hits while striking out eight over six innings. Tim Herrin and Kolby Allard followed with two innings of scoreless relief and Hunter Gaddis pitched the ninth for his third save.<\/p>\n
TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Chandler Simpson had his second straight three-hit game and Tampa Bay beat Toronto to split their series.<\/p>\n
Toronto\u2019s magic number to clinch a postseason spot remained at three. The AL East leaders have lost two straight following a six-game winning streak.<\/p>\n
Shane Baz (10-12) pitched five scoreless innings with two hits and four strikeouts. Four relievers combined to finish the shutout, Tampa Bay\u2019s ninth of the season.<\/p>\n
Simpson lined a two-run single in the second inning to put Tampa Bay ahead. His consecutive three-hit games have bumped the rookie speedster\u2019s batting average to .301. He was caught stealing for the 12th time in 54 tries this season.<\/p>\n
Brandon Lowe followed Simpson with an RBI single in the second. Carson Williams extended the lead in the sixth with his fourth home run.<\/p>\n
The Rays forced Chris Bassitt (11-9) into long at-bats, running his pitch count to 89 before knocking him out in the fifth. The right-hander allowed three runs and eight hits in 4 1\/3 innings.<\/p>\n
NEW YORK \u2014 Jonah Tong threw five encouraging innings and earned the win Thursday afternoon for the New York Mets, who lengthened their lead in the race for the final National League playoff spot with a 6-1 victory over the San Diego Padres.<\/p>\n
Pete Alonso homered for the fourth straight game, Brandon Nimmo also went deep and Juan Soto collected his 100th RBI for the Mets, who won a series for the first time since taking two of three from the Detroit Tigers from Sept. 1-3.<\/p>\n
The Mets lead the idle Arizona Diamondbacks by two games for the third wild card and moved within four games of the Padres, the second wild card.<\/p>\n
Tong (2-2), who allowed six runs while recording only two outs last Friday, gave up an unearned run on four hits Thursday while racking up eight strikeouts. Beginning with Luis Arr\u00e1ez\u2019s third-inning sacrifice fly, the 22-year-old Tong retired the final eight batters he faced, five by strikeout.<\/p>\n
Soto reached 100 RBIs for the third straight season with a tie-breaking groundout in the third against Randy V\u00e1squez (5-7). Alonso, who homered in the first, then walked before Nimmo greeted Wandy Peralta with a 389-foot homer to right.<\/p>\n
Alonso added a sacrifice fly in the seventh.<\/p>\n
V\u00e1squez surrendered four runs in 2 1\/3 innings.<\/p>\n
BOSTON (AP) \u2014 Brent Rooker homered in a three-run first inning and J.T. Ginn limited Boston to five hits over six innings to lead the Athletics to a victory.<\/p>\n
The A\u2019s started the game with four straight hits, including Rooker\u2019s two-run shot \u2014 his 30th of the season. Ginn (4-6) allowed two runs while walking one and striking out three.<\/p>\n
Hogan Harris pitched two innings for his fourth save.<\/p>\n
David Hamilton and Trevor Story each hit a solo homer for Boston, which lost for the fifth time in seven games. The Red Sox entered the day tied with Seattle for the third and final AL wild-card spot; Cleveland,\u00a0which beat Detroit\u00a0on Thursday, was 1 1\/2 games back.<\/p>\n
Brayan Bello (11-8) allowed four runs \u2014 three earned \u2014 on five hits and two walks while striking out three in four innings.<\/p>\n
DENVER \u2014 Liam Hicks matched a career high with four RBIs, including his sixth homer of the season, and Miami beat Colorado to complete a three-game sweep.<\/p>\n
Otto Lopez and Heriberto Hern\u00e1ndez also homered for the Marlins, who finished with 34 hits in the series at Coors Field.<\/p>\n
Miami has won seven of eight and remained six games back of the New York Mets for the final National League wild-card spot.<\/p>\n
Sandy Alcantara (10-12) struck out eight and gave up three runs in 6 2\/3 innings. Over his past 11 starts, the former Cy Young Award winner is 6-3 with a 3.18 ERA. He went 4-9 with a 7.14 ERA in his first 19 starts this season.<\/p>\n
The Rockies mounted a late charge with a four-run ninth inning, but with the tying run at the plate, Calvin Faucher forced Jordan Beck into a groundout to pick up his 14th save.<\/p>\n
In his 11th major league game, Blaine Crim homered twice for the MLB-worst Rockies, who have lost five in a row, 11 of 12 and 22 of 26. Mickey Moniak hit a two-run home run in the ninth to extend his streak of games with a homer to four.<\/p>\n
Tanner Gordon (6-7) allowed four runs (three earned) over six innings.<\/p>\n
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) \u2014 Luis Castillo pitched six innings of three-hit ball, Jorge Polanco and J.P. Crawford drove in runs, and Seattle beat Kansas City to climb back into a first-place tie with the Houston Astros in the AL West.<\/p>\n
The Mariners are headed to Houston for a three-game series beginning Friday night.<\/p>\n
Eduard Bazardo and Gabe Speier tossed an inning apiece for Seattle. Andres Mu\u00f1oz stranded two in the ninth by striking out Adam Frazier on three pitches for his 36th save.<\/p>\n
Castillo (10-8) dueled with Kansas City counterpart Stephen Kolek, who allowed two runs \u2014 one earned \u2014 while pitching into the eighth inning. One run came on Polanco\u2019s double and the other after an astute move by manager Dan Wilson in the eighth.<\/p>\n
Kolek appeared to have retired the first two batters of the inning when Wilson challenged that second baseman Michael Massey set up on the grass ahead of Dominic Canzone\u2019s groundout, in violation of Major League Baseball\u2019s defensive shift rules. The challenge was successful, Canzone was awarded first base, and reliever Daniel Lynch IV eventually gave up Crawford\u2019s run-scoring double to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n
Castillo and Kolek (5-6) were so stingy that each allowed just a pair of runners over the first four innings, and both times they were on back-to-back hits. The difference was the Royals paired together singles and stranded both runners while the Mariners got Josh Naylor\u2019s single and an RBI double by Polanco for a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Castillo only allowed one other runner, a single by Royals rookie Carter Jensen in the fifth. Kolek similarly breezed through the Seattle lineup until a two-out walk to Naylor in the seventh; he promptly struck out Polanco to end the inning.<\/p>\n
BALTIMORE \u2014 Max Fried struck out 13 over seven innings while earning his major league-leading 18th victory, and surging New York blanked Baltimore.<\/p>\n
The victory moved the Yankees within three games of first-place Toronto in the AL East. Both teams have nine games left.<\/p>\n
New York has gone 17-7 since Aug. 23 to climb out of third place in the division and take charge of the AL wild card.<\/p>\n
Mixing fastballs, changeups and a tantalizingly slow curve ball, Fried (18-5) dominated the last-place Orioles. His 13 strikeouts tied a career high, set last year against Boston while with the Atlanta Braves.<\/p>\n
Fried allowed only three hits \u2014 all singles \u2014 to win his fifth straight start and reach a career high in victories. The lefty notched 17 wins in 2019 with Atlanta.<\/p>\n
Amed Rosario provided the Yankees the lead for good with a two-run, two-out double in the first inning off Cade Povich (3-8).<\/p>\n
It was 3-0 before New York pulled away with a four-run seventh.\u00a0<\/p>\n
MILWAUKEE \u2014 Christian Yelich went 2 for 4 and reached 100 RBIs for the season as Milwaukee defeated Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
Yelich\u00a0doubled home\u00a0Brice Turang as part of the Brewers\u2019 three-run outburst in the seventh inning that broke a 2-all tie. This marks Yelich\u2019s first 100-RBI season since 2018, when he had 110 and was named the\u00a0NL MVP.<\/p>\n
The Brewers completed a three-game sweep and reduced their magic number for clinching the NL Central to four. The Angels have lost seven straight.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee\u2019s Quinn Priester struck out eight of the first nine batters he faced and didn\u2019t allow a baserunner until the fifth inning, when Jo Adell drew a leadoff walk and Luis Rengifo homered. Those were the only runs allowed by Priester, who struck out 10 and gave up three hits and two walks in 5 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n
Priester has won a Brewers-record 12 straight decisions. He left this game with Milwaukee trailing 2-1, but the Brewers rallied after his departure.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee tied it in the sixth when Caleb Durbin greeted Jos\u00e9 Ferm\u00edn with a two-out single that scored Yelich.<\/p>\n
Jackson Chourio led off the seventh with a ground-rule double off Luis Garc\u00eda (2-2) and scored the go-ahead run on Turang\u2019s single. After Yelich doubled home Turang, William Contreras came home on Andrew Vaughn\u2019s sacrifice fly.<\/p>\n
LOS ANGELES \u2014 Shohei Ohtani hit two doubles off the wall and scored a run, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto combined with five relievers on a one-hitter with 10 walks in Los Angeles\u2019 victory over San Francisco.<\/p>\n
Freddie Freeman singled home Ohtani in a two-run sixth for the Dodgers, who have won eight of 11 despite another adventurous evening for their beleaguered bullpen.<\/p>\n
Yamamoto allowed only Patrick Bailey\u2019s second-inning single and struck out seven, but he also walked six while laboring into the sixth inning. Michael Kopech and Blake Treinen then combined to walk four Giants while allowing a run in the seventh.<\/p>\n
However, Anthony Banda threw a perfect eighth and Alex Vesia calmly finished for his fifth save.<\/p>\n
Logan Webb (14-11) matched Yamamoto\u2019s one-hit performance until the sixth, when the Dodgers put together three more hits and two runs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT \u2014 Jose Ramirez hit a tie-breaking, two-run homer in the seventh inning after\u00a0Tarik Skubal\u00a0was replaced and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-154676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}