Records broken in 18-inning marathon
Aaron Hicks slid across home plate, hopped up and flexed his arms in jubilation.
No Monday morning blues for Hicks and the New York Yankees.
Hicks scored on Starlin Castro’s grounder in the 18th inning, and the Yankees beat the Chicago Cubs 5-4 in the majors’ longest interleague game ever by innings.
The teams combined for a major league-record 48 strikeouts in baseball’s longest game of the season by innings, wrapping up in a tidy six hours, five minutes, and ending after 1 a.m. local time in Chicago.
The Yankees set franchise strikeout records for pitching with 26 and hitting with 22. The previous single-game records were 19 for pitching and 17 for batting.
Pirates: Pitcher Jameson Taillon underwent surgery Monday for suspected testicular cancer. The righthander, 26, remains on the 10-day disabled list.
Red Sox: Steven Wright will miss the rest of the season after having surgery to restore left knee cartilage. The knuckleballer was 1-3 with an 8.25 ERA.
Angels: An MRI exam on Mike Trout’s tight left hamstring showed no damage or problems. Trout got the exam after sitting out for the third time in four games Sunday.
Mets: The team said righthander Matt Harvey is set to rejoin the rotation Friday at Milwaukee after serving a three-day suspension for not showing up at Citi Field for a game last weekend. The suspension is costing Harvey $84,016 of his $5.125 million salary.
Braves: Former Phillies slugger and National League MVP Ryan Howard was released from his minor league contract at Triple-A Gwinnett. Howard, 37, hit .184 with one homer, two walks and 11 strikeouts in 42 plate appearances over 11 games at Gwinnett.
Giants: San Francisco was outscored 31-5 in its threegame sweep by the Reds. The Giants had not been outscored by 26 runs in a three-game series since 1894 against Boston, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
White Sox: First baseman Jose Abreu hit .157 with one extra-base hit, no homers and five RBIs in his first 13 games. But he has hit .393 with six doubles, a triple, five homers, 11 RBIs and a 1.218 OPS in his next 16 games to raise his average to .286.