Phillies return, but no match for red-hot Yankees
YANKEES 6, PHILLIES 3
NEW YORK — Philadelphia returned from a weeklong layoff caused by additional coronavirus testing with a matchup against baseball’s hottest pitcher, and Gerrit Cole won his debut in pinstripes for his 19th consecutive regular-season victory to lead the New York Yankees over the Phillies 6-3 Monday night.
DJ LeMahieu led off the bottom of the first with a home run off Jake Arrieta (0-1), who made his first appearance since surgery last August to remove a bone spur from his right elbow.
After Jay Bruce tied the score with a home run off Cole in the third, Brett Gardner led off the bottom half with a drive down the left-field wall for a home run. Aaron Hicks added an RBI double later in the inning for a 3-1 lead, and Gio Urshela blew open the game with a three-run home run in the sixth on a changeup from Deolis Guerra.
Cole (3-0) allowed 1 run and 5 hits, struck out 4 and walked 1 on 91 pitches. He left after a 1-hour, 7-minute rain delay ahead of the seventh.
Cole’s streak of consecutive winning decisions is the sixth-longest behind Carl Hubbell (24), Roy Face (22), and Rube Marquard, Roger Clemens and Arrieta (20 each).
New York improved to 8-1 for the third time, also doing so in 1988 and 2003. The Yankees have won seven straight — the equivalent of a 19-game spurt over a 162-game season. New York is 22-0-3 in its last 25 home series, matching the team record from 1935, 1995-96 and 1997-98, according to STATS.
Aaron Judge was 2 for 4 with a double, ending his career-best streak of five games with home runs.
Arrieta, the 2015 NL Cy Young Award winner with the Chicago Cubs,
gave up 3 runs and 7 hits in 5 innings with 4 strikeouts and no walks.
Philadelphia, which dropped to 1-3, had not played since an 11-6 loss to Miami at Citizens Bank Park on July 26. A covid-19 outbreak among the Marlins started that weekend and led to 21 infections in Miami’s traveling party, including at least 18 players. CUBS 2, ROYALS 0 Kris Bryant homered in his return to the lineup and Alec Mills pitched seven effective innings, helping host Chicago beat the Kansas City Royals.
REDS 3, INDIANS 2
Joey Votto hit the goahead home run, Nick Castellanos also connected and, Cincinnati beat Cleveland. Sonny Gray shook off a tough start to the game to complete six strong innings, and Cincinnati ended a six-game home losing streak against their in-state rival.
TWINS 5, PIRATES 4
Nelson Cruz’s RBI double in the bottom of the ninth inning gave host Minnesota a victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates for their fourth straight win. Cruz, who knocked in two runs to raise his season total to 14 RBI, drove a pitch from Pirates reliever Nick Burdi (0-1) over the head of center fielder Cole Tucker with runners at second and third and one out.
WHITE SOX 6, BREWERS 4
Jose Abreu hit a tying, two-run home run in the seventh inning, Leury Garcia scored on a wild pitch in the eighth, and Yoan Moncada added a solo shot in the ninth to lift visiting Chicago over Milwaukee in the Brewers’ belated home opener. Milwaukee was set to open Miller Park for a weekend series against St. Louis, but that was postponed after numerous Cardinals tested positive for the covid-19. The Brewers had been idle since Wednesday at Pittsburgh.
NATIONAL LEAGUE METS 7, BRAVES 2
Jacob deGrom struck out a season-high 10 in six innings as New York snapped a five-game skid by toppling the Atlanta Braves, who suffered a potentially huge blow when ace Mike Soroka was helped off the field with right leg injury. Robinson Cano had three RBI before leaving the game himself for the Mets.
ROCKIES 7, GIANTS 6
Nolan Arenado hit his first home run of the season to ignite a five-run sixth inning as Colorado matched its best start in franchise history by holding off San Francisco in Denver. The Rockies are 7-2 for the fifth time in team history. They also had that mark in 1995, 1997, 2011 and 2015.
PADRES 5, DODGERS 4
Jake Cronenworth singled home the go-ahead run in the sixth inning for host San Diego, which hit three solo home runs off Walker Buehler and beat Los Angeles.
AMERICAN LEAGUE ATHLETICS 11, MARINERS 1
Ramon Laureano and Chad Pinder had two-run singles during Oakland’s fifth inning, and the visiting Athletics thumped Seattle. Oakland scored eight times in the fifth inning, with all the runs coming with two outs.