Shohei Ohtani homered to tie for the most by a Japan-born player, but Jackson Merrill singled home the go-ahead run in the 11th inning to lift the San Diego Padres to an 8-7 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday.
Ohtani took Michael King deep with one out in the first inning for his fourth home run of the season and 175th of his career, tying him with Hideki Matsui, who played 10 seasons in the majors from 2003-12.
Mookie Betts, Max Muncy and Teoscar Hernandez also homered for the Dodgers, who squandered a 7-3 lead after five innings.
Jake Cronenworth’s solo home run in the sixth drew the Padres within 7-4 and San Diego scored three in the seventh on a run-scoring groundout before Fernando Tatis Jr.’s two-run blast off Ryan Brasier tied it.
Manny Machado and Ha-Seong Kim homered as the Padres got back to .500 (8-8) with their third win in four games.
The Dodgers failed to score in the 10th and 11th innings, with Betts flying out to center with the tying run at third in the 11th.
De La Cruz homers again as Reds cruise
Elly De La Cruz hit a three-run homer for his fourth longball in his last four games to back a strong start by Andrew Abbott in the Cincinnati Reds’ 11-1 rout of the Chicago White Sox.
Tyler Stephenson also went deep and Christian Encarnacion-Strand and Santiago Espinal each added two hits and three RBIs for the Reds.
De La Cruz singled in the second inning to reach safely for the 18th straight game dating to last season.
He hit his fourth home run of the season in the third after he had an inside-the-park homer and 450-foot drive during a 10-8 win over Milwaukee on Monday before going deep again in a 7-2 loss to the Brewers on Wednesday.
De La Cruz is 8 for 15 with four home runs, seven RBIs and eight runs in his last four games.
Rangers drop Astros 7 under .500
Jonah Heim homered and had four RBIs and Evan Carter added three hits to help the Texas Rangers to a 12-8 victory that dropped the Houston Astros seven games under .500 for the first time in eight years.
Houston, which has lost four straight and allowed 36 runs in its last three games, fell to 4-11. The Astros are seven below .500 for the first time since they were 22-29 before a Memorial Day win in 2016, a season in which they dropped to 20-29 before a five-game winning streak.
Texas extended its lead to 12-3 with four runs in the sixth, as Adolis Garcia singled home a run before Heim had a run-scoring groundout and Jared Walsh stroked a two-run single.
Kyle Tucker homered twice, and Jake Meyers drove in three runs for the Astros.
MLB: Tigers' Flaherty strikes out first 7 batters, fans 14 in doubleheader opener
Jack Flaherty tied an American League record with seven straight strikeouts to open the game and finished with a career-high 14 before the St. Louis Cardinals rallied for a 2-1 win over the Detroit Tigers in a doubleheader opener on Tuesday.
Flaherty’s game-opening seven strikeouts matched the AL record shared by Joe Cowley of the 1986 Chicago White Sox, Carlos Rodon of the 2016 White Sox, Tampa Bay’s Blake Snell in 2018 and Seattle’s Luis Castillo two years ago.
Miami’s Pablo Lopez holds the major league record by striking out the first nine batters of a game in 2021.
Flaherty’s 14 strikeouts were the most by a Tigers pitcher since Max Scherzer had 14 against Pittsburgh on Aug. 14, 2014.
Detroit took a 1-0 lead into the ninth, but Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt and Alec Burleson had one-out singles before Pedro Pages followed with a go-ahead sacrifice fly for his first career RBI.
In the second game, Wenceel Perez homered from both sides of the plate, including a tiebreaking shot in the fifth inning, to lift the Tigers to an 11-6 win.
Streaking Twins beat White Sox
Max Kepler had a tiebreaking sacrifice fly in the ninth inning to lead the Minnesota Twins to their ninth straight victory, 6-5 over the Chicago White Sox.
Minnesota’s win streak is its longest since a 10-game run in June 2008. The Twins also have won seven consecutive games against the White Sox.
After Andrew Benintendi homered in the eighth to tie it at 5, Bryon Buxton led off the ninth with a walk and took third on Manuel Margot’s single. Kepler’s fly to center gave the Twins a 6-5 lead and Jhoan Duran pitched around a leadoff single by Tommy Pham in the bottom of the ninth for the save in his season debut.
Danny Mendick added his first home run of the season for Chicago, which dropped to a major league-worst 6-24.
Caratini, Hader lift Astros to wild win
Victor Caratini hit a pinch-hit, two-run homer with two outs in the 10th inning after Josh Hader pitched two innings for the first time since 2019 in the Houston Astros’ 10-9 win over the Cleveland Guardians.
David Fry’s RBI double in the top of the 10th put the Guardians ahead by one, but Caratini took Hunter Gaddis deep to give the Astros their third straight win.
Hader pitched a scoreless ninth before returning for the 10th. He got more than three outs in a regular-season game for the first time since getting four on Aug. 14, 2020, and had his first two-inning appearance in five years.
Josh Naylor and Estevan Florial hit three-run homers and Andres Gimenez also went deep for Cleveland, which rallied from an 8-3 deficit with a five-run sixth.
Angels’ Mike Trout to undergo knee surgery
Los Angeles Angels center fielder Mike Trout will undergo surgery to repair the torn meniscus in his left knee, the team announced Tuesday.
Trout will be out indefinitely, but the injury is not thought to be season-ending, ESPN reported.
The news is a devastating blow to the Angels, who will be without the three-time AL MVP for at least a couple of months.
Trout underwent an MRI after playing in the Angels’ win over the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday but was initially unaware that he had suffered a significant injury.
“It's crazy, because I look back and I don't even know when I did it,” Trout told reporters on Monday. “I was kind of telling myself, ‘Maybe I just banged it on something and I didn’t realise it.’ And then after the game, getting treatment on it, it was really sore.
“The plan was just to see how I felt in the morning. If I woke up and it was sore, just get it looked at. That was the plan. Last night was tough for me to sleep. It was just aching all night.”
Trout is batting .220 this season and leads the majors with 10 home runs.
This will be the third season in the last four that Trout has missed significant time due to injury. The 11-time All-Star missed the last half of last season with a broken bone in his hand, and a calf injury limited him to 36 games in 2021.
The Angels are reeling as a franchise after losing Shohei Ohtani in free agency to the cross-town rival Dodgers, a major blow to a team that has missed the playoffs in each of the last nine seasons.
Los Angeles entered play Tuesday at 11-18.
MLB: Christopher Morel’s HR in 9th rallies Cubs over Mets
Christopher Morel hit a go-ahead home run off Edwin Diaz with two outs in the ninth inning, and the Chicago Cubs rallied to a 3-1 win over the New York Mets on Monday.
Morel’s heroics came an inning after Michael Busch scored the tying run on a fielder’s choice.
Mets starter Luis Severino carried a no-hitter into the eighth inning, when Dansby Swanson singled to left center with no outs.
Making his sixth start for the Mets, Severino threw eight innings and allowed one run with five strikeouts.
Jameson Taillon was nearly as good for the Cubs. After giving up a lead-off home run to Brandon Nimmo to open the game, Taillon allowed four hits in 7 1/3 innings.
Cubs closer Hector Neris walked two batters in the bottom of the ninth but finished the game with back-to-back strikeouts for his fourth save of the year.
Twins extend winning streak to 8 games
Max Kepler hit an RBI single in the ninth inning, lifting the Minnesota Twins to a 3-2 win over the White Sox as their winning streak reached eight games.
After the White Sox scored two runs in the first inning, Minnesota’s Carlos Santana tied the game with a home run in the second off of Chicago starter Garrett Crochet.
The teams played six scoreless innings before Byron Buxton scored from second on Kepler’s single off John Brebbia.
The White Sox got the tying run to third base in the bottom of the ninth, but Caleb Thielbar punched out Korey Lee to seal the Minnesota win.
After a rough start to the season, the Twins’ current win streak has them at 15-13, one game back of the surprising Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers.
Garver’s walk-off lifts M’s over Braves
Mitch Garver hit a two-run, walk-off home run in the ninth inning to lift the Seattle Mariners over the Atlanta Braves 2-1.
The Mariners had only four hits in a game dominated by excellent pitching, but two of those hits came in the ninth against A.J. Minter, including Garver’s game-winning blast.
The Braves carried a combined no-hitter into the eighth inning that was broken up by a Josh Rojas single. Atlanta starter Max Fried went six innings, walking two and striking out seven.
Seattle starter Bryce Miller pitched seven strong innings, allowing two hits and one run with 10 strikeouts.
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