Montero lifts Cubs over Pirates
CHICAGO: Chicago’s Miguel Montero drove in the winning run in the 13th inning to give the Cubs an 8-7 win against Pittsburgh on Monday, ending the Pirates long run of road victories and putting a dent in their play-off ambitions.
The Cubs maintained a 14-game lead atop the NL Central and with 32 games to play, they seem certain of winning the division.
Washington also seems destined for a division title, moving nine games clear atop the NL East with a shut-out win at Philadelphia.
Texas are another team with a seemingly impregnable lead, maintaining an 8½ game lead in the American League West by downing a Seattle team that saw their wild-card hopes fade further.
Toronto opened a two-game l ead in the AL East by beating divisional rival Baltimore.
Chicago’s Dexter Fowler, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo hit consecutive singles against Jeff Locke to bring the tying run to the plate. After Ben Zobrist was walked intentionally to tie the scores, Montero lined a clean single into left field to drive in the winning run.
Cubs reliever Rob Zastryzny got his first major league win despite allowing a run in the top half of the inning.
The Pirates had won eight straight road games, and fell 1½ games behind St Louis for the second NL wild card.
Washington’s Tanner Roark threw seven scoreless innings, steering the Nationals to a 4-0 win against Philadelphia.
Roark struck out five and his work was finished off by Marc Rzepczynski, who tossed a perfect eighth and Mark Melancon, who finished off the shut-out.
Jayson Werth hit a solo homer for the Nationals in the first inning against his former team.
Texas’ Yu Darvish struck out nine in 6 2/3 innings to set up a 6-3 win against Seattle.
Darvish easily outpitched fellow Japanese Hisashi Iwakuma of Seattle for his third straight win, leaving to a standing ovation with a 6-1 lead in the seventh after throwing 110 pitches, the most since his return from Tommy John surgery.
Carlos Beltran homered among three hits for the Rangers who won the first of six straight games at home against the two teams chasing them in the AL West and dropped the Mariners into third, a game behind Houston and 9½ behind Texas.
Toronto’s Marco Estrada allowed one run over seven-plus innings to guide the Blue Jays to an important 5-1 win at Baltimore.
Josh Donaldson hit his fourth homer in two days tie the scores in the fourth inning, and Jose Bautista also went deep for Toronto, who went four games ahead of the Orioles.