Riley, Wright lead Braves by D-Backs
ATLANTA — Austin Riley had a homer and three RBIs, Kyle Wright earned his NL-leading 13th victory and the Atlanta Braves beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-2 on Friday night.
Riley homered in the first and drove in runs with doubles in the third and fifth. He has 11 homers, 24 RBIs and a .427 average this month.
The defending World Series champion Braves began the day in second place and three games behind the New York Mets in the NL East. Atlanta had lost four of seven but improved to 37-14 since June 1, the best record in the major leagues over that span.
Wright has won five straight decisions and has a 2.93 ERA over his last six starts. He gave up five hits and two runs with two walks and five strikeouts in 6 2⁄3 innings.
Riley put Atlanta up 5-2 in the fifth with a double that drove in Swanson from first. His 29th homer in the first made it 1-0 as the ball barely cleared the leftfield wall near the visitor’s bullpen.
Riley extended his sizzling streak as he began the night ranked among the top six in the majors in extrabase hits, total bases, homers, hits, slugging percentage and OPS.
Cardinals 6, Nationals 2: Nolan Gorman and Lars Nootbaar hit back-to-back homers in the sixth inning, and St. Louis won at Washington. Washington’s Juan Soto went 1 for 4 in what could be his final homestand with Tuesday’s trade deadline looming. The Nationals were 0 for 9 with runners in scoring position. Miles Mikolas (8-8) allowed two runs in seven innings for St. Louis, which won consecutive games for the first time since July 15-16. Anibal Sanchez lost his third consecutive start for Washington, which has a majors-worst record of 34-67. Sanchez (0-3) pitched into the sixth inning for the first time this season, and nearly escaped trailing just 3-1. Gorman hit a two-run homer to right on a full count to break the game open.
Guardians 4, Rays 1: Jose Ramirez hit a tie-breaking two-run homer in the fifth, Shane Bieber struck out eight in seven innings and Cleveland won at St. Petersburg, Fla. Ramirez’s 21st homer, a drive off Jeffrey Springs (3-3), gave Cleveland a 3-1 lead. Ramirez added a two-out RBI single in the eighth after Steven Kwan’s third single. Bieber (5-6) is 2-3 in nine starts since June 3. He needed 26 pitches in the first, when Ji-Man Choi hit a run-scoring single. The Rays stranded the bases loaded when Christian Bethancourt struck out. Emmanuel Clase pitched the ninth for his 22nd save in 24 chances. Bieber, who has pitched six innings or more in 11 of his last 13 starts, gave up one run and five hits.