The Tampa Bay Rays just keep winning. The team with the best record in the American League scored seven unanswered runs Tuesday for an 8-4 triumph over the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park.
Down 4-1 after five innings thanks to home runs from Rafael Devers and Hunter Renfroe, the Rays tied it up on an RBI single from Wander Franco and a two-run double by Ji-Man Choi.
Francisco Mejia then blew it open with a bases-loaded single in the ninth that brought home three with help from a Renfroe error.
The Red Sox have now dropped six in a row against the Rays, whose 69-44 record is second only to the San Francisco Giants in MLB.
Tampa Bay hold a five-game lead over Boston in the AL East.
Dodgers stop Phillies' streak
Max Scherzer started things off in Philadelphia and the Los Angeles' Dodgers' bullpen and bats finished it as the World Series champions sealed a 5-0 victory that broke the Phillies' eight-game winning streak. Scherzer had six strikeouts in 3.1 scoreless innings before a rain delay of one hour, 44 minutes knocked him from the game at Citizens Bank Park.
Not to worry, as six Dodgers relievers finished the job by shutting the Phillies out the rest of the way with home runs by Corey Seager and Max Muncy boosting the Los Angeles offence and Trea Turner contributing one of the more impressive slides in memory.
Former Red Adam Duvall hit a two-run homer to tie the game and Stephen Vogt's bases-loaded walk provided the winning margin as the Atlanta Braves edged Cincinnati 3-2 to pull within a game of the Phillies in the NL East.
The San Francisco Giants watched a five-run lead disappear in the sixth inning before fighting back twice to defeat the Arizona Diamondbacks 8-7 as an error by Christian Walker allowed the winning run to score in the ninth.
The Milwaukee Brewers made clear where the balance of power lies in the National League (NL) Central, sweeping a doubleheader from the Cubs at Wrigley Field 4-2 and 6-3 to expand their division lead to seven games over the Cincinnati Reds.
Oakland starter Sean Manaea left after 1.2 innings but the Athletics rallied for a 4-3 win against the Cleveland Indians as Jed Lowrie sent the game to extra innings with an RBI groundout in the eighth, then won it in the 10th with a run-scoring double.
Starters come up short
Relief pitchers took centre stage across baseball on Tuesday. According to Stats Perform, it was the first time in MLB history that every team was in action and no starter pitched more than six innings.
Out of the Park in Pittsburgh
The Pittsburgh Pirates managed only one hit in a 4-1 loss to the St Louis Cardinals, but that hit was Hoy Park's first MLB home run. The Seoul native has been a sensation since coming over from the Yankees last month and is now nine for 28 (.321) with five extra-base hits for the PIrates.
Tuesday's results
Milwaukee Brewers 4-2 Chicago Cubs
Milwaukee Brewers 6-3 Chicago Cubs
St Louis Cardinals 4-1 Pittsburgh Pirates
Los Angeles Dodgers 5-0 Philadelphia Phillies
Oakland Athletics 4-3 Cleveland Indians
Tampa Bay Rays 8-4 Boston Red Sox
Detroit Tigers 9-4 Baltimore Orioles
Atlanta Braves 3-2 Cincinnati Reds
Houston Astros 5-0 Colorado Rockies
Minnesota Twins 4-3 Chicago White Sox
Kansas City Royals 8-4 New York Yankees
San Francisco Giants 8-7 Arizona Diamondbacks
Texas Rangers 5-4 Seattle Mariners
San Diego Padres 6-5 Miami Marlins
Los Angeles Angels 6-3 Toronto Blue Jays
Toronto Blue Jays 4-0 Los Angeles Angels
Washington Nationals 3-1 New York Mets (suspended)
Dodgers at Phillies
The Los Angeles Dodgers (68-45) send another Cy Young Award winner to the mound as David Price starts against Kyle Gibson and the Philadelphia Phillies (59-54).
'It's time for a magical night at home,' says Vinicius ahead of Bayern Munich second leg
Vinicius Junior is eyeing "a magical night at home" when Real Madrid welcome Bayern Munich for their Champions League semi-final second leg next week.
The two European heavyweights shared a 2-2 draw in a pulsating first leg at the Allianz Arena, setting up a grandstand climax when the battle resumes at Santiago Bernabeu.
Vinicius opened the scoring in the 24th minute, but Madrid found themselves 2-1 behind in the second half after Leroy Sane levelled and Harry Kane slotted home from the penalty spot.
However, the Brazil international was also on target from the penalty spot to ensure a share of the spoils with his 31st direct goal involvement in the Champions League since the start of the 2021-22 season - more than any other player in that time.
"We always want to win, but we know that this competition is like that, you can't give away balls because teams score the chances they have," he said, as reported by Reuters.
"We have to keep our heads calm, rest until next week, and we know that we and the fans are going to leave everything at the Santiago Bernabeu to qualify.
"Now it's time for a magical night at home to win and secure our place in the final."
Vinicius' first goal saw him calmly slide home from Toni Kroos' delicious throughball, with the latter playing 15 line-breaking passes in the first half - at least 10 more than any other player on the pitch.
Rodrygo, who was fouled by Kim Min-jae for the penalty that led to Madrid's second goal, paid tribute to the 34-year-old.
"We all keep telling him to keep on playing for not just one more season, but many seasons to come yet," he told Movistar. "He's genuinely a maestro with talent which people love to watch, and we all love to play with.
"If we couldn't win, we were determined not to lose. Given what went on, a draw's a good result. We know the Champions League. We're accustomed to matches like this.
"I believe that teams think they've killed us off, and that's when we are at our most dangerous."
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.
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