Chris Sale joined Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax as the only pitchers in MLB history with three immaculate innings after helping the Boston Red Sox past the Minnesota Twins 12-2.
Red Sox ace Sale pitched 5.2 innings, striking out eight batters while allowing two runs on two hits in Boston on Thursday.
Sale stole the headlines with his nine-pitch third inning after striking out Twins trio Nick Gordon, Andrelton Simmons and Rob Refsnyder on three pitches each.
"Today was probably the best my mechanics have been start-to-finish. I really felt like I was staying on top of the baseball. I really kind of found it out in the bullpen before the game," Sale said.
Boston team-mate Bobby Dalbec homered twice for the Red Sox, driving in seven runs.
Judge lifts Yankees to 12th straight win
The New York Yankees extended their winning streak thanks to Aaron Judge's tie-breaking single with two outs in the ninth inning as they edged the Oakland Athletics 7-6. The Yankees have won 12 games in a row – their best run since 1961.
Another day and another win for World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers, who beat the San Diego Padres 4-0 for a three-game sweep behind Max Scherzer. Dodgers star Scherzer gave up just two hits and one walk while striking out 10. The Dodgers have now gone 11 consecutive seasons without a losing record – their longest streak since the team moved to Los Angeles.
Salvador Perez became the first American League (AL) catcher with 35-plus homers in a season since 1999. Perez's grand slam run helped the Kansas City Royals to a 6-4 victory at the Seattle Mariners.
The Washington Nationals lost 7-5 to the Miami Marlins but Juan Soto joined an exclusive club. The Nationals star recorded his second season of 100-plus walks – becoming only the third player to do so through their age-22 season along with Hall of Famers Ted Williams and Mel Ott.
Angels grounded again
Despite Shohei Ohtani's lead-off homer, the Los Angeles Angels were humbled 13-1 by the resurgent Baltimore Orioles, who snapped a 19-game losing streak 24 hours earlier. Elvis Peguero was charged with five of the six runs the Angels allowed in the fifth inning.
Grand slam!
Struggling for form before Wednesday, the Orioles celebrated back-to-back wins on Thursday. Pedro Severino fuelled Baltimore with a grand slam and six RBIs.
Thursday's results
Baltimore Orioles 13-1 Los Angeles Angels
Cincinnati Reds 5-1 Milwaukee Brewers
Chicago White Sox 10-7 Toronto Blue Jays
Arizona Diamondbacks 8-7 Philadelphia Phillies
Pittsburgh Pirates 11-7 St Louis Cardinals
Boston Red Sox 12-2 Minnesota Twins
San Francisco Giants 3-2 New York Mets
Cleveland Indians 10-6 Texas Rangers
Miami Marlins 7-5 Washington Nationals
Los Angeles Dodgers 4-0 San Diego Padres
New York Yankees 7-6 Oakland Athletics
Kansas City Royals 6-4 Seattle Mariners
Cubs at White Sox
Bragging rights will be on the line when the White Sox (74-55) host city rivals the Cubs (56-73) on Friday. Dallas Keuchel will toe the mound for the White Sox as the Cubs counter with Keegan Thompson.
Slot deserves praise for modest approach to Liverpool job – Mills
Arne Slot deserves praise for not being "arrogant" with his approach to succeeding Jurgen Klopp as Liverpool boss, according to Danny Mills.
The Dutchman has made a hugely positive start to life at Anfield since replacing long-serving Klopp ahead of the 2024-25 season.
The 28 points Slot has collected is the joint-most of any manager in their opening 11 Premier League games along with Guus Hiddink at Chelsea.
Liverpool's only blemish on an otherwise perfect start to the top-flight campaign was a 1-0 loss to Nottingham Forest in September.
Indeed, only in 2019-20 (31 points) have Liverpool collected more points after 11 games of a Premier League season than their 28 this campaign.
Former Leeds United and Manchester City defender Mills has been particularly impressed by Slot's approach to a new era at Anfield.
"Arne Slot has surprised me," Mills told Stats Perform. "They did have a difficult defeat against Nottingham Forest at home. That was a defeat not many people saw that coming, but the start he's had is unbelievable. It's incredible.
"Training might be slightly different, but the style of play is very similar. The players are comfortable with it. They've been high-energy, closing people down, and playing at 100 miles an hour when they win the ball back.
"It shows managerial intelligence to understand the players' qualities and build on what they had when they were successful. He hasn't overthought it or tinkered too much.
"He hasn’t been arrogant and said, 'I'm going to rip it up and start fresh'. It wasn't broken; it was already successful. He's just added to it."
Liverpool won a first ever Premier League title during Klopp's eight-and-a-half years in charge, as well the Champions League in 2018-19.
Klopp also lifted the FA Cup, two EFL Cups, the UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup, setting a high benchmark to follow.
"Liverpool identified the man they wanted, brought him in, and he's been very clever," Mills added. "He looked at the squad and thought, 'these are good players. I don't need to change too much'.
"That's smart because Liverpool were very successful under Klopp. If you come in and rip up the playbook and it doesn't work, players will question why they're not doing what worked under Klopp."
Liverpool have conceded just six goals in the Premier League this season – four fewer than next-best Nottingham Forest.
They are conceding at a rate of around 0.5 goals per game, compared to around 1.1 in Klopp's final season in charge (41 goals in 38 matches).
"Slot has tweaked things slightly, maybe made them more defensively solid, which they needed to really challenge," Mills said. "Championship-winning or Champions League-winning teams are built on solid defences.
"You don't win without that. He's shored up the defence and allowed the players to continue doing what they were doing before."
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.
Barca weren't going to sign Williams if they could not register him, says Laporta's advisor
Barcelona were not going to sign Nico Williams if his registration with LaLiga could not be guaranteed, according to Blaugrana president Joan Laporta's advisor, Enric Masip.
The Spain international was a top target for Hansi Flick's side after playing a starring role during La Roja's Euro 2024 triumph.
Williams netted a fine solo goal in the 4-1 win over Georgia in the round of 16, becoming the first player on record at the Euros (since 1980) to score, assist and complete 100% of his passes (46 from 46) in a game he started.
The Athletic Bilbao forward was then named Player of the Match after finding the net in Spain's 2-1 victory over England in the final.
Williams was expected to reunite with international team-mate Lamine Yamal at Camp Nou.
It was reported he chose to remain with Bilbao after Barca were unable to guarantee his registration with LaLiga due to complying with the salary cap, but Masip - advisor to Laporta - has refuted those claims.
"If a player who is of your interest doesn't want to move, you don't have much leeway," he told El Chiringuito. "There was not much you could do.
"It's hard for me to think that if you were going to sign Nico Williams, you wouldn't be able to register him.
"Barca weren't going to pay €50 million or €60 million for a player if they weren't going to be able to register him. So, well, it surely would have been done."
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