Mike Trout continued his prolific start to the new Major League Baseball season with a homer in a third straight game as the Los Angeles Angels won 7-5 against the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday.
With the game tied at 3-3 at the top of the fifth, Trout creamed Blue Jays right-hander Ross Stripling a projected 444 feet for a solo home run.
"That one definitely had some flight attendants working on it," Angels manager Joe Maddon joked.
In the first of their four-game series in Dunedin, Florida, Trout starred with 3-for-5 but fell a triple short of the cycle in the victory.
On Trout's form, Maddon added: "There's no surprise element to any of this. He's not doing anything new, it's actually a lot of old stuff."
Yermin Mercedes endeared himself to the Chicago White Sox fans in their home opener with a monster 485-foot home run.
The home run in their 6-0 victory over the Kansas City Royals was Mercedes' second of the season and goes down as the third-longest hit by a White Sox player in Guaranteed Rate Field history.
Mets walk-off controversy, Jose lift off for Astros
The New York Mets' 3-2 walk-off victory over the Miami Marlins ended in controversy and the winners admitted they got lucky.
After Jeff McNeil tied the game at 2-2 in the ninth with a home run, the Mets had bases loaded as Michael Conforto stepped up.
After two strikes, a pitch grazed Conforto's elbow pad and home-plate umpire Ron Kulpa initially appeared set to call a third strike before changing mid-motion to say the pitch hit the batter, earning the Mets the run they needed.
"Not the way I wanted to win the ballgame," Conforto said post-game. "I wanted to go up there and drive the ball somewhere.
"From my point of view, it was a slider. I felt it was coming back toward me and I turned. There may have been a little lift of my elbow just out of habit, out of reaction, and it barely skimmed the edge of my elbow guard."
Marlins manager Don Mattingly was left frustrated that they could not review the call.
"You'd think with all the replay we do that you could say, 'That ball's a strike'," he said.
The Houston Astros improved to a 6-1 record with a 6-2 triumph over the struggling Oakland Athletics, with Jose Altuve delivering a home run in their home opener after a long wait.
The Minnesota Twins won 10-2 against the Seattle Mariners, while the Boston Red Sox won 7-3 on the road to the Baltimore Orioles.
Fails for the A's
The A's slumped to a 1-7 record with their loss to the Astros, where it took them until the ninth inning to get on the board.
Grichuk grasps Trout hit
Trout's day may have been a little bit better for the Angels if not for Randal Grichuk's sensational diving catch in center in the ninth.
Thursday's results
New York Mets 3-2 Miami Marlins
Chicago Cubs 4-2 Pittsburgh Pirates
Boston Red Sox 7-3 Baltimore Orioles
Colorado Rockies 7-3 Arizona Diamondbacks
Chicago White Sox 6-0 Kansas City Royals
Minnesota Twins 10-2 Seattle Mariners
St Louis Cardinals 3-1 Milwaukee Brewers
Los Angeles Angels 7-5 Toronto Blue Jays
Houston Astros 6-2 Oakland Athletics
Rays against Yankees
Last year's American League champions the Tampa Bay Rays have had a slow start at 2-4 and they take on the New York Yankees (3-3).
MLB: Vientos hits 2nd home run of game in 10th to give Mets eighth straight win
Mark Vientos’ second home run of the game was a walk-off two-run shot in the 10th inning that gave the New York Mets their season-high eighth straight win, 6-4 over the Cincinnati Reds on Friday night.
New York is riding its longest winning streak since an eight-game run in August 2019. Vientos also connected in the first inning for the Mets, who remained tied with Atlanta for the last National League wild card.
Mets closer Edwin Díaz and younger brother Alexis, the Reds' ace reliever, pitched in the same game for the first time in their major league careers.
Edwin Díaz struck out all three batters in the top of the ninth, fanning Elly De La Cruz and Spencer Steer with 100 mph fastballs.
Alexis Díaz worked a hitless bottom of the ninth to keep the score tied.
With automatic runner Brandon Nimmo on second base, Vientos drove a 2-2 fastball from Justin Wilson to left field for his 24th home run.
Cincinnati was coming off a three-game sweep of AL West-leading Houston and had won four in a row overall.
Machado ties Padres’ home run record
Manny Machado hit a pair of home runs to tie Nate Colbert for the franchise’s all-time record with 163 as the San Diego Padres defeated the San Francisco Giants, 5-1.
Machado had a solo shot in the first and then matched Colbert with a drive into the second deck in left field leading off the eighth.
He tied Colbert with 20 games to go in his sixth season in San Diego. Colbert hit 163 in six seasons with the Padres, from their expansion season of 1969 through 1974. He played for four other teams in his career and had 173 total homers.
Machado's 25th of the season gave him 42 multi-homer games since his rookie year of 2012.
Machado has 338 homers in his 13-year career. He had 162 with Baltimore and then 13 after being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 18, 2018. He signed as a free agent with the Padres on Feb. 21, 2019.
Astros’ Alvarez hits pair of 3-run homers
Yordan Alvarez hit two three-run homers and Framber Valdez pitched seven innings in the Houston Astros' 8-0 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
AL West-leading Houston got back on track after being swept in a three-game series at Cincinnati to remain 4 ½ games ahead of Seattle.
Houston led by a run when Alvarez, whose six RBIs are a season high, connected off Brandon Pfaadt in the fifth inning to make it 4-0. Jose Altuve hit an RBI single in the sixth, and Alvarez homered again in his next at-bat, this time to the bullpen in right-center off Jordan Montgomery, to extend it to 8-0.
Alvarez had his seventh multi-homer game to tie Chris Carter (2014) for the most in a season in franchise history. It’s his second this week after also slugging two in a win over Kansas City at home Sunday after he hadn’t homered at Minute Maid Park since June 22.
Valdez allowed just two singles and struck out seven after pitching seven innings of no-hit ball in his last start.
Meadows' slam in ninth lifts Tigers past Padres
The San Diego Padres were one strike away from padding their lead atop the NL wild-card standings.
The Detroit Tigers' Parker Meadows changed that with one swing of the bat.
Down 3-0 with two outs and two strikes in the top of the ninth inning, Meadows hit a grand slam to stun the Padres and send the Tigers to a thrilling 4-3 win on Thursday.
Parker hit a 101 mph four-seam fastball off Robert Suarez that travelled 361 feet and landed just over the short left-field fence in San Diego.
San Diego (80-62) lost for the first time in four games and its lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks shrunk to just one-half game for the NL's top wild-card spot.
Jurickson Profar and Xander Bogaerts each homered for the Padres, who end the regular season with a three-game series at Arizona.
Meadows' homer was just his sixth of the season and lifted the Tigers (71-70) back over .500 and within five games of the Royals for the AL's final wild-card spot.
Braves lose, now tied for final NL wild card spot
The Atlanta Braves suffered a 3-1 loss to the last-place Colorado Rockies to drop into a tie for the league's final wild-card berth with the idle New York Mets.
Atlanta and New York have identical 76-64 records with 22 games remaining.
The Braves, who got their lone run on Ramón Laureano's RBI single in the first inning, managed just five hits with Orlando Arcia's second inning-double the only one going for extra bases in the finale with the Rockies (52-89).
Colorado's Michael Toglia and Ezequiel Tovar each hit solo homers off Atlanta starting pitcher Reynaldo Lopez, who gave up three other hits while striking out 11 without a walk in his six innings of work.
Rockies starter Austin Gomber went eight innings, yielding a run and five hits without issuing a walk while striking out six.
Phillies push winning streak to five
The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Miami Marlins 5-2 to extend their winning streak to five games and increase their lead atop the NL East to eight games.
Bryson Stott hit an RBI single in the first inning and a long solo homer during Philadelphia's four-run sixth inning.
Kody Clemens knocked in a pair of runs with a double in the sixth and later came around to score on a wild pitch.
Ranger Suarez gave up three hits over five scoreless innings for the Phillies (84-56), who have won 10 of 12.
The Marlins (52-88) scored their first run in the seventh on an RBI single by Jesús Sánchez and plated their final run an inning later on a throwing error by Clemens.
Giants, 3B Chapman agree to 6-year, $151 million contract
Third baseman Matt Chapman and the San Francisco Giants agreed to a six-year, $151 million contract on Wednesday night.
Chapman, 31, will earn $25 million each season from 2025 to 2030 and additionally will receive a $1 million signing bonus in 2025.
He joined the Giants as a free agent in March, agreeing to a contract guaranteeing $54 million over three seasons. That deal gave him the right to opt out after 2024 and 2025. It included a $2 million signing bonus and a $16 million salary for 2024.
Chapman is hitting .247 and leads the Giants with 22 homers, 69 RBIs, 90 runs and 33 doubles. He is a four-time Gold Glove winner and has a .241 career average with 177 homers and 495 RBIs for Oakland (2017-21), Toronto (2022-23) and the Giants.
An All-Star in 2019, Chapman hit a career-high 36 home runs for Oakland and finished sixth in the American League MVP voting. He was traded to Toronto in March 2022.
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