Max Scherzer allowed one hit over five scoreless innings in a triumphant return to the mound as the Texas Rangers earned a 4-0 win over the sputtering Kansas City Royals on Sunday to complete a three-game series sweep.
Scherzer retired 15 of the 16 batters he faced in a dominant delayed season debut. The three-time Cy Young Award winner was making his first appearance in a major league game since last year's World Series after recovering from back surgery and a nerve issue in his right arm.
The 39-year-old set down the first 13 Kansas City hitters before surrendering a ground-rule double to MJ Melendez with one out in the fifth inning.
Leody Taveras led Texas offensively by going 2 for 4 and delivering a two-run single as the Rangers scored three times in the fourth inning to break a 0-0 deadlock.
Adolis Garcia led off the inning by drawing a walk against Alec Marsh and Nathaniel Lowe followed with an infield single to put two on for Wyatt Langford, who drilled a double to center to plate Garcia with the game's first run.
Marsh got the next two hitters out but couldn't retire Taveras, who blooped a ball into left field that fell in to extend Texas' lead to 3-0.
The Royals managed just two hits on the day and lost for the 11th time in 14 games. Jose Urena relieved Scherzer and gave up one hit over the final four innings to record his first save of the season and close out the Rangers' fourth straight win.
Josh Smith accounted for Texas' final run with a solo homer in the seventh inning.
Marsh (5-5) worked 5 2/3 innings and allowed three runs on eight hits.
Lopez fans 14 in eight scoreless innings in Twins' win
Pablo Lopez also came through with a masterful pitching performance Sunday, as the Minnesota ace struck out 14 Oakland Athletics hitters over eight shutout innings in the Twins' 3-0 win.
Lopez (7-6) retired the first 17 Oakland hitters before Lawrence Butler broke up the perfect-game bid with a clean single with two out in the sixth inning. The 2023 All-Star yielded just one other hit and a walk while matching a career high for strikeouts.
Byron Buxton supplied the offence for Minnesota, which took two of three games in the series, by going 2 for 3 with a homer and two runs batted in.
Buxton's solo homer off Hogan Harris in the second inning staked the Twins to a 1-0 lead. Harris held Minnesota scoreless over the next four innings, but ran into trouble in the seventh.
Carlos Santana and Willi Castro began the inning with back-to-back singles before Buxton chased Harris with a run-scoring double. Castro then scored the Twins' final run on a fielder's choice off the bat of Kyle Farmer.
Harris (1-1) was charged with all three Minnesota runs while giving up five hits in six-plus innings.
Griffin Jax relieved Lopez to start the ninth and struck out two more A's hitters to wrap up Minnesota's eighth win in 11 games.
Valdez's gem gives Astros sweep of Orioles
Framber Valdez shut down the Baltimore Orioles' potent lineup over seven strong innings to lead the surging Houston Astros to an 8-1 win and a three-game series sweep of one of the American League's top teams.
Valdez (6-5) scattered six hits and struck out seven while permitting one run to help Houston to a fifth consecutive win. The defending AL West champions are now two games under .500 (38-40) for the first time since losing their first two contests of the season.
The Astros also received plenty of offence to become just the second team to sweep a three-game series from Baltimore this season. Yainer Diaz and Jeremy Pena each had three hits and three RBIs, Alex Bregman went 4 for 4 with two runs scored and Jose Altuve homered among his two hits.
Houston wasted no time getting on the board, as Altuve launched Orioles' starter Albert Suarez's first pitch of the game over the left field wall to ignite a four-run opening inning.
Bregman followed with a double and scored on Diaz's one-out single before Pena stroked a run-scoring double to quickly put Houston up 3-0. Mauricio Dubon then plated Pena with a single to cap the big inning.
The Astros tacked on another run off Suarez in the fourth when Cesar Salazar singled, took third on another Bregman double and scored on Diaz's sacrifice fly.
Suarez (3-2) was tagged for five runs and 10 hits in five innings of work.
Jordan Westburg homered off Valdez in the top of the sixth for Baltimore's only run, but the Astros would score twice more in the bottom of the inning to pad the margin.
Bregman and Diaz each reached on singles before Pena drove in both with a double that increased the lead to 7-1.
Altuve singled in the eighth and later scored Houston's final run on Diaz's second sac fly of the game.
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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