Adrian Houser pitched five effective innings and Tyrone Taylor drove in two runs as the Milwaukee Brewers completed a three-game sweep of the American League West-leading Texas Rangers with Sunday's 6-2 win.
Milwaukee chased three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer in the fourth inning to maintain a three-game advantage on second-place Chicago in the National League Central. The Cubs kept pace with Sunday's 4-3 victory over the Kansas City Royals.
Houser allowed just one run on six hits and struck out seven to help the Brewers deal the slumping Rangers a fourth consecutive loss. Taylor finished 2 for 3 with three runs scored and Christian Yelich had a pair of hits, including an RBI double, as Milwaukee took advantage of an uncharacteristically wild outing from Scherzer.
Scherzer walked four batters and hit another while being charged with three runs in just 3 2/3 innings. The star hurler entered Sunday's matchup having allowed just four runs in 20 innings in winning each of his first three starts since being traded to Texas by the New York Mets on July 30.
The 39-year-old did record his 3,343rd career strikeout in the third inning to pass Hall of Famer Phil Niekro for 11th place on MLB's all-time list.
Corey Seager went 2 for 4 and accounted for the Rangers' lone run off Houser with a solo homer in the third inning.
Surging Mariners hold off Astros to sweep three-game series
The AL West is quickly becoming a three-team race thanks to the recent tear of the Seattle Mariners, who won for the 14th time in 17 games by holding on for a 7-6 victory over the division-rival Houston Astros on Sunday.
Seattle built a 6-0 lead after 2 1/2 innings en route to a sweep of the three-game series and sixth straight win overall. The surge has moved the Mariners within three games of the first-place Texas Rangers in the AL West and a half-game back of Houston for the league's second wild card.
Dominic Canzone and Dylan Moore each went 4 for 5 with an RBI to lead Seattle's 15-hit attack, while Eugenio Suarez had a two-run homer as the Mariners pounded Astros starter Hunter Brown for six runs in 2 2/3 innings.
The Astros rallied with five runs in the bottom of the third, but were held scoreless by the Seattle bullpen over the final three innings to lose for the fifth time in seven games.
Gabe Speier protected the one-run lead in the ninth to record his first career major league save.
Yordan Alvarez and Mauricio Dubon each knocked in two runs during Houston's big third inning, while Alex Bregman finished 2 for 4 with an RBI triple.
Red Sox extend Yankees' skid to eight games, finish series sweep
Justin Turner's ninth-inning double drove in the deciding run as the Boston Red Sox earned a 6-5 victory over the New York Yankees that sent the Bronx Bombers to their longest losing streak in 28 years.
The Yankees have now dropped eight games in a row for the first time since Aug. 19-26, 1995 despite rallying from a three-run deficit and nearly going ahead in the eighth inning.
New York appeared to take a 6-5 lead when Isiah Kiner-Falefa was called safe at home while attempting to score on Anthony Volpe's single with two outs in the bottom of the eighth. The ruling was overturned after the Red Sox challenged the play, however, to keep the game tied entering the ninth.
Pablo Reyes led off the ninth with a single off Clay Holmes and stole second before crossing the plate on Turner's opposite-field double, the veteran's fourth RBI of the game.
Kenley Jansen then worked around a leadoff double in the bottom of the ninth to earn his 29th save and close out Boston's eighth win in nine meetings with New York this season.
Turner also had a three-run homer in the seventh that snapped a 2-2 tie, while Rafael Devers delivered a solo shot for Boston and finished 3 for 4 with three runs scored.
The Yankees homered three times on the day, including Volpe's three-run blast off reliever John Schreiber in the bottom of the seventh that tied the game at 5-5. Gleyber Torres and Kyle Higashioka had solo shots in defeat.
Sale, Skubal win MLB's Cy Young Awards
Detroit Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal and Atlanta Braves lefty Chris Sale were each named the winner of their respective league’s Cy Young Award on Wednesday.
The announcement was hardly a surprise after each ace won their league's pitching triple crown during the 2024 regular season.
This is the first Cy Young for both pitchers.
Skubal, who turned 28 on Wednesday, enjoyed a break-out year in his fourth full MLB season, and was a unanimous winner, receiving all 30 first-place votes in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. The Kansas City Royals' Seth Lugo finished second and Cleveland Guardians relief pitcher Emmanuel Clase finished third in the balloting, which was completed before the play-offs.
Sale received 26 of 30 first-place votes, while Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Zack Wheeler finished second, ahead of Pittsburgh Pirates righty Paul Skenes, who was selected as the National League Rookie of the Year on Monday.
The 35-year-old Sale has come close to winning the award before, finishing as runner-up to Cleveland's Corey Kluber in 2017, with five other top-five finishes in voting since his first full season in the majors in 2011.
Since the inception of the Cy Young Award in 1956, there have been 16 pitchers to win his league's pitching crown. And now, every one of them has also won that year's Cy Young.
Skubal and Sale each won an MLB-best 18 games, while Skubal led all pitchers with 228 strikeouts – three more than Sale. Sale's ERA of 2.38 was just a tick better than Skubal's 2.39.
Both were dominant down the stretch in leading their teams to the play-offs, with Sale permitting two earned runs or fewer in each of his final 18 regular-season starts, though he was unable to pitch in the season final or the Braves' NL Wild-Card series loss to the San Diego Padres because of a back injury.
Skubal posted a 1.94 ERA in his final nine outings, and then threw 13 shutout innings in his first two play-off starts in helping the Tigers surprisingly reach the American League Division Series. He ended up going 1-1 with a 2.37 ERA in three post-season starts.
Skubal became the fifth Tiger to win the Cy Young trophy – and first since Max Scherzer in 2017 – and Sale is the fifth Brave to earn the award – and first since Hall of Famer Tom Glavine in 1998.
Despite several close calls in Cy Young voting for Sale, he has dealt with injuries for the past five seasons, and was limited to a total of 151 innings over the past three years for the Boston Red Sox.
In his first season with the Braves, however, he threw 177 2/3 innings and was awarded the NL Comeback Player of the Year Award last Thursday.
Dodgers erase 5-run deficit, beat Yankees to win World Series
The Los Angeles Dodgers won their second World Series championship in five seasons, overcoming a five-run deficit with the help of three Yankees defensive miscues and rallying on sacrifice flies from Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts in the eighth inning to beat New York 7-6 in Game 5 on Wednesday night.
Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit back-to-back home runs in the first inning, Alex Verdugo’s RBI single chased Jack Flaherty in the second and Giancarlo Stanton’s third-inning homer against Ryan Brasier built a 5-0 Yankees lead.
But errors by Judge in center and Anthony Volpe at shortstop, combined with pitcher Gerrit Cole failing to cover first on Betts' grounder, helped Los Angeles score five unearned runs in the fifth.
After Stanton’s sixth-inning sacrifice fly put the Yankees back ahead 6-5, the Dodgers loaded the bases against loser Tommy Kahnle in the eighth before the sacrifice flies off Luke Weaver.
Winner Blake Treinen escaped a two-on, one-out jam in the bottom half by retiring Stanton on a flyout and striking out Anthony Rizzo.
Walker Buehler, making his first relief appearance since his rookie season in 2018, pitched a perfect ninth for the save.
Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers’ record-setting $700 million signing and baseball’s first 50-homer, 50-steal player, went 2 for 19 with no RBIs and had one single after separating his shoulder during a stolen base attempt in Game 2.
Freddie Freeman hit a two-run single to tie the Series record of 12 RBIs, set by Bobby Richardson over seven games in 1960. With the Dodgers one out from losing Friday’s opener, Freeman hit a game-ending grand slam reminiscent of Kirk Gibson’s homer off Oakland’s Dennis Eckersley in 1988’s Game 1 that sparked Los Angeles to the title.
The Dodgers earned their eighth championship and seventh since leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles - their first in a non-shortened season since 1988. They won a neutral-site World Series against Tampa Bay in 2020 after a 60-game regular season and couldn’t have a parade because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Volpe hits grand slam as Yankees avoid World Series sweep
Anthony Volpe hit a grand slam and New York’s bullpen tossed five scoreless innings as the Yankees avoided a World Series sweep with an 11-4 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night.
Freddie Freeman homered for his sixth straight Series game, hitting a two-run drive in the first inning for the second straight night and again stunning the Yankee Stadium crowd.
Game 5 is Wednesday night, with the Yankees ace Gerrit Cole and the Dodgers’ Jack Flaherty meeting in a rematch of Game 1.
Twenty-one of the previous 24 teams to take 3-0 Series leads went on to sweeps, all but the 1910 Philadelphia Athletics against the Chicago Cubs, the 1937 Yankees against the New York Giants and the 1970 Baltimore Orioles against the Cincinnati Reds. All three of those Series ended in five games.
Seeking to become the first team to overcome a 3-0 Series deficit, New York surged ahead 5-2 on Alex Verdugo’s RBI grounder in the second and Volpe’s drive against Daniel Hudson in the third. Volpe turned on a first-pitch slider at the knees and drove it into the left-field seats.
Volpe came across with New York's first run when he walked after falling behind 0-2 in the count in the second inning. He also doubled and stole two bases.
Austin Wells and Gleyber Torres added homers for the Yankees, who broke open the game with a five-run eighth. New York had scored just seven runs in the first three games.
Los Angeles closed within 6-4 in a two-run fifth that included Will Smith's homer off starter Luis Gil and an RBI grounder by Freeman. Despite a sprained right ankle, Freeman beat a relay to avoid an inning-ending double play on what originally was ruled an out but was reversed in a video review.
Wells hit a second-deck homer in the sixth against Landon Knack, and Verdugo added another run-scoring grounder in the eighth ahead of Torres' three-run homer off Brent Honeywell.
Tim Hill, winning pitcher Clay Holmes, Mark Leiter Jr., Luke Weaver and Tim Mayza strung together five innings of one-hit relief with seven strikeouts, and the Yankees avoided what would have been their first losing Series sweep since 1976.
New York's Aaron Judge drove in his first run of the Series with an RBI single in the eighth and is 2 for 15 in the four games. Dodgers sensation Shohei Ohtani also is 2 for 15 after going 1 for 4 with a single, his first hit since partially separating his left shoulder in Game 2.
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