The Tampa Bay Rays' 11-game winning streak ended as they went down 2-1 to the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday in the MLB.
With veteran Rich Hill on the mound, the Rays were exceptional in the outfield in the early innings with Austin Meadows and Kevin Kiermaier pulling off spectacular catches from Andrew Benintendi.
Hill, at the cherry ripe age of 41, tossed down 13 strikeouts across seven innings for the Rays.
But the Royals got their go-ahead run in the sixth inning when Cam Gallagher touched down from Salvador Perez's hit.
Shohei Ohtani hit his 15th homerun of the season, a 117 mph rocket, as the Los Angeles Angels won 11-5 over the Texas Rangers, while the San Diego Padres made it 10 wins from their past 11 with a 7-1 victory at the Milwaukee Brewers.
Guerrero moves to 16, DeGrom returns
Vladimir Guerrero moved into the outright lead for most homeruns this season in the Toronto Blue Jays' 6-2 win over the New York Yankees.
Guerrero hit his 16th homer of the 2021 MLB season in the third inning, as Yankees pitcher Corey Kluber started for the first time since last week's no-hitter.
Kluber only sent down 58 pitches across three innings, allowing his first hit in 39 batters, before being hastily replaced by Michael King, with fears of a shoulder injury.
The result ended the Blue Jays' six-game losing streak too.
Jacob deGrom returned for his first game since April 28 with ride side tightness and pitched five innings with nine strikeouts as the New York Mets won 3-1 over the Colorado Rockies.
It was not a perfect return for deGrom, allowing only his third homerun of the season, when Ryan McMahon homered in the second inning. It was the first he has allowed in the strike zone too.
Right-hander Edwin Diaz stepped up to finish the job for the Mets with three strikeouts, sending down a 100 mph pitch on the corner to end the game.
Max Scherzer was on song for the Washington Nationals but it was not enough for victory as the Cincinnati Reds triumphed 2-1 with Kyle Farmer and Eugenio Suarez homeruns.
Scherzer pitched seven innings and had nine strikeouts, including eight out of the strike zone.
Jack's rough high school reunion
Harvard-Westlake pals Jack Flaherty and Lucas Giolito reunited in the Chicago White Sox's 8-3 win over the St Louis Cardinals. Flaherty had started with an 8-0 record in his first eight appearances for the Cardinals but that came to an end in a hard day, including a wild pitch to Yermin Mercedes which allowed Nick Madrigal to score. Jose Abreu also returned to form with a homer off Flaherty.
Greinke vs Kershaw in Houston
Star pitchers Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw faced off with the latter getting the upper hand as the Los Angeles Dodgers won 9-2 at the Houston Astros. Kershaw sent down 81 pitches with 57 strikes and six Ks. He only gave up one run and did not walk anybody.
Tuesday's results
Chicago Cubs 4-3 Pittsburgh Pirates
Philadelphia Phillies 2-0 Miami Marlins
Cincinnati Reds 2-1 Washington Nationals
Toronto Blue Jays 6-2 New York Yankees
Atlanta Braves 3-1 Boston Red Sox
Kansas City Royals 2-1 Tampa Bay Rays
New York Mets 3-1 Colorado Rockies
Cleveland Indians 4-1 Detroit Tigers
San Diego Padres 7-1 Milwaukee Brewers
Minnesota Twins 7-4 Baltimore Orioles
Chicago White Sox 8-3 St Louis Cardinals
Los Angeles Dodgers 9-2 Houston Astros
Los Angeles Angels 11-5 Texas Rangers
San Francisco Giants 8-0 Arizona Diamondbacks
Seattle Mariners 4-3 Oakland Athletics
Padres at Brewers
Fernando Tatis Jr and the San Diego Padres continue their enthralling series away to the Milwaukee Brewers.
'We will see' – Pep waiting to make Haaland call ahead of City-Liverpool
Erling Haaland is still recovering from his groin injury, with Pep Guardiola saying a final decision on his fitness for this weekend would be made later on Friday.
Haaland has enjoyed an astonishing first season at Manchester City, scoring 42 goals in all competitions – comfortably the most of any player in Europe's top five leagues.
But his momentum was checked heading into the international break by an injury that kept the forward from linking up with Norway.
City have a huge game against Liverpool on Saturday and are hopeful Haaland will be back, although Guardiola was eager to take his time with that call.
"Erling is recovering," the manager said. "We have the last training session and we will see how he feels."
Guardiola, who added Phil Foden would be out for "two or three weeks" following appendix surgery, was asked if he would risk Haaland if he was not convinced he was fully fit.
The City boss was happy to trust the 22-year-old's judgement, but he is also confident his side would cope without their superstar striker.
In the Premier League, Haaland has scored 28 goals, making up 42 per cent of City's total this term and earning 20 points. All three are high marks for a City player in a single season.
"The doctors and especially the players will decide," Guardiola said. "How does he feel? Yesterday I spoke with him and he feels good. But we will see, we will see what happens.
"We have scored a lot of goals this season, and he's scored an incredible amount of goals, but in the past we also scored a lot of goals.
"Since we were here, and with Roberto Mancini and [Manuel] Pellegrini, always Man City was a team that scored a lot of goals in the season – with different players, different strikers.
"They scored a lot of goals, which is what we will try to do until the end of the season."
City have scored the second-most goals across Europe in all competitions this season, with their 109 trailing Bayern Munich's 112. They are the only two teams to reach three figures.
Arsenal's Saka lands first Premier League Player of the Month award
Bukayo Saka has been named the Premier League's Player of the Month for the first time, scooping the prize after helping leaders Arsenal win all four of their games in the competition in March.
Saka hit three goals and added two assists in four appearances during the month as Arsenal posted wins over Everton, Bournemouth, Fulham and Crystal Palace.
Only Manchester City's Erling Haaland (33) and Tottenham's Harry Kane (23) have been involved in more Premier League goals than Saka this season (22).
The 21-year-old – considered a candidate to be named player of the season – is the only player to reach double figures for both goals (12) and assists (10) in the competition this term.
Having helped Arsenal establish an eight-point lead over City as the Gunners chase their first league title since 2004, Saka also scored with a stunning long-range strike as England beat Ukraine 2-0 in the international break.
Saka saw off competition from Alexander Isak, Alexis Mac Allister, Tyrone Mings, Mohamed Salah and Arsenal team-mate Leandro Trossard to win the Premier League award.
He becomes the second Arsenal star to land the monthly prize this campaign, after Martin Odegaard was named the best player across November and December either side of the World Cup break.
Rybakina matches Serena Williams aces feat and follows in footsteps of Graf
Elena Rybakina moved one win away from completing the 'Sunshine Double' and did so on the back of a serving feat last achieved by Serena Williams almost seven years ago.
Reigning Wimbledon champion Rybakina battled past Jessica Pegula in the semi-finals of the Miami Open, scoring a 7-6 (7-3) 6-4 win to book a clash with Petra Kvitova or Sorana Cirstea in the title match.
In doing so, Rybakina set up the chance of sealing an Indian Wells and Miami back-to-back double, a feat that only four women have pulled off before: Steffi Graf (1994, 1996), Kim Clijsters (2005), Victoria Azarenka (2016) and Iga Swiatek (2022).
She also becomes just the sixth woman to appear in the finals of the Australian Open, Indian Wells and Miami in the same year after Monica Seles (1991), Graf (1994), Lindsay Davenport (2000), Martina Hingis (2000) and Maria Sharapova (2012).
The Williams accomplishment that Rybakina has matched stands as testament to the Kazakhstani player's serving prowess.
She has served at least 10 aces in each of her five matches in Miami, and Williams at Wimbledon in 2016 was the last player from the WTA Tour to serve 10-plus aces in five matches in a single tournament.
Rybakina lost to Aryna Sabalenka in the Australian Open final in January but has put that behind her and enjoyed a stellar March. She beat Swiatek in the Indian Wells semi-finals before toppling Sabalenka in the final, and now another chance of a trophy awaits.
Discussing the challenge of completing the hard-court US double, Rybakina said: "It's really difficult, and because of different conditions in these two weeks by the matches you could see that it's much more difficult for me here than even in Indian Wells.
"It's just the finals, still close but the same time far. The Sunshine Double, I try my best, and hopefully I can make it. I didn't expect to be in the final. I knew that it was going to be very tough from the beginning, from the first match. And it was, actually. First two matches was really tough."
She came through dicey three-setters against Anna Kalinskaya and Paula Badosa before kicking on, winning in straight sets against Elise Mertens, Martina Trevisan and Pegula.
"Actually, the whole two weeks were really tough," Rybakina said after seeing off Pegula late on Thursday. "I'm happy to be in another final."
With her runs in Indian Wells and Miami, the Russian-born 23-year-old has already won 13 main-draw matches at WTA 1000 level in 2023, matching her personal best for an entire season, achieved last year.
Mar 28, 2023 NBA
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