Brewers, Cards on wild-card collision course

Christian Yelich hit his 32nd home run, Travis Shaw added his 31st and the Milwaukee Brewers blew past the mistake-prone Pirates 13-6 on Sunday in Pittsburgh.

Yelich finished 2-for-3 to boost his batting average to an NLleading .322 as Milwaukee won for the third time in four games to bolster its chances of reaching the post-season for just the fifth time in franchise history.

The Brewers (89-67) hold the top NL wild-card spot and remained 21/2 games behind the first-place Chicago Cubs in the NL Central, as well as two games ahead of St. Louis, which has the second wild-card position. Both rivals also won Sunday.

At St. Louis, Miles Mikolas won his fourth straight start, Matt Carpenter hit his NL-leading 36th homer and the Cardinals beat the San Francisco Giants 9-2 to complete a three-game sweep and remain on track for the NL’s second wild card.

St. Louis (87-69) has won three straight games and six of seven. The Cardinals began the day 11/2 games ahead of Colorado, which played later Sunday, for the final wild-card berth.

St. Louis hosts the Brewers in a three-game series starting on Monday night.

In New York, the Yankees’ Didi Gregorius tore cartilage in his right wrist Saturday while scoring the run that clinched a wild-card berth for New York.

On Sunday, after his team wasted a three-run lead in a 6-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles, manager Aaron Boone said Gregorius was hurt when he slid into home plate head first to score from first. Boone said he was unsure if Gregorius, who has 27 homers and 86 RBIs, would be able to return in time for the post-season.

New York began the day leading Oakland by 11/2 games for homefield advantage in the wild-card game. The Athletics hosted Minnesota in a later game.