Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Phillies clobbered
NATIONALS 5, CARDINALS 4
Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Mark Leiter (above) reacts during the New York Mets’ 10-run fifth inning Thursday at Citizens Bank Stadium in Philadelphia. The Mets set a club-record for runs during a 24-4 victory in the first game of a doubleheader. Philadelphia won the second game 9-6.
ST. LOUIS — Bryce Harper had three hits and drove in three runs, and a beleaguered bullpen held on as the Washington Nationals snapped a four-game losing streak with a 5-4 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Thursday night.
The Nationals won for just the third time in their last 10 games and snapped the Cardinals’ season-high, eight-game winning streak.
Tanner Roark (8-12) gave up four runs, three earned, in six innings.
A bullpen that had blown two leads to start the losing streak took care of the rest. Justin Miller pitched two scoreless innings and Koda Glover earned the save in the first opportunity since Ryan Madson was placed on the disabled list on Tuesday.
Harper drove in the game’s first run with a double in the first and knocked in two more with a bases-loaded single in the fourth to give the Nationals a 4-1 lead.
A pair of errors helped the Nationals extend their lead to 5-1 in the fifth. St. Louis committed three errors in the game after committing just four total errors during the winning streak.
The Cardinals got within one in the sixth. After Paul DeJong and Kolten Wong came up with backto-back, two-out RBI hits, Harrison Bader hit a slow grounder to third. Anthony Rendon’s throw to first got away from Ryan Zimmerman for an error, allowing Wong to score from second to cut the Nationals’ lead to 5-4.
Just two of the four runs Luke Weaver (6-11) allowed in his 32/3 innings were earned. He gave up seven hits, including two to Roark, who scored both times.
Tyson Ross allowed one unearned run in 31/3 innings of relief.
Bader homered in the third and Matt Carpenter walked in the third to extend his on-base streak to a career-high 34 games.
ROCKIES 5, BRAVES 3
Colorado snapped Ronald Acuna Jr.’s home run streak and Atlanta’s five-game winning streak, rallying for three unearned runs in the ninth inning to beat the Braves 5-3 on Thursday night. David Dahl homered in the third and capped the winning rally with a twoout, two-run single off Brad Brach. The Rockies took advantage of an error by shortstop Danby Swanson leading off the ninth to win for the fifth time in six games. One night after being plunked in the left arm by Miami’s Jose Urena, Acuna was back in the lineup looking to extend his homer streak to six games. Wearing a red protective guard, the 20-year-old slugger received a standing ovation his first time up and lined the second pitch — one more than he saw the previous game — into center field for a single, extending his hitting streak to nine games. That was the highlight of his night. Acuna finished 1 for 4, lining out to right in the eighth in his last chance to become the first player in Braves franchise history to homer in six straight games. Urena received a six-game suspension from Major
Thursday’s games NATIONAL LEAGUE
N.Y. Mets 24, Philadelphia 4, 1st game Chicago Cubs 1, Pittsburgh 0 Washington 5, St. Louis 4 Colorado 5, Atlanta 3 Philadelphia 9, N.Y. Mets 6, 2nd game Arizona at San Diego, (n)
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Tampa Bay 3, N.Y. Yankees 1 Texas 8, L.A. Angels 6 Minnesota 15, Detroit 8 Toronto at Kansas City, (n)
League Baseball. The Braves squandered a strong outing by Julio Teheran, who turned in his longest start since May 30. He pitched three-hit ball over seven innings and helped his cause with a run-scoring single in the fifth, snapping a 2-2 tie. The Braves couldn’t hold the lead. The Braves, who began the night with a two-game lead in the NL East, missed out on their longest winning streak in nearly two years.
METS 24, PHILLIES 4, 1ST GAME; PHILLIES 9, METS 6, 2ND GAME
Rhys Hoskins hit a three-run homer, Scott Kingery had a solo shot and the Philadelphia Phillies beat the New York Mets 9-6 on Thursday night to split their doubleheader. In the first game, Jose Bautista hit a grand slam and had a career-high seven RBIs as the Mets set a franchise record for runs, prompting the Phillies to use two position players to pitch the final three innings of a 24-4 rout. The Mets kept on hitting in the nightcap with three straight doubles on Zach Eflin’s first four pitches. Michael Conforto’s two-run double made it 2-0. But then Hoskins crushed one high off the foul pole to give the Phillies a 3-2 lead in the bottom half against Steven Matz (5-10), just activated from the disabled list. Hoskins, who went deep in both ends of the twinbill, has 11 of his 25 homers since the All-Star break — and three in the last four games. In the opener, Corey Oswalt (2-2) allowed four solo homers in six innings, Amed Rosario hit a leadoff homer and had three RBIs and the Mets took advantage of four errors to score 11 unearned runs. Even reliever Jerry Blevins got his first career hit, a line-drive RBI single off Kingery. The Mets scored more than 15 runs in consecutive games for the first time in franchise history. They beat Baltimore 16-5 Wednesday night.
CUBS 1, PIRATES 0
Jon Lester pitched six innings to win for the first time in just over a month and Ian Happ homered as the Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 1-0 on Thursday night. Lester (13-5) allowed five hits, struck out eight and had no walks while improving to 3-1 against the Pirates this season. His previous victory came July 15 at San Diego and he had gone 0-3 with a 10.32 ERA in five starts since the All-Star break. Steve Cishek, Carl Edwards Jr. and Pedro Strop each pitched one inning to complete the six-hitter. Strop hit David Freese with a pitch with two outs in the ninth but converted his 10th save in 13 opportunities. Happ connected with one out in the fourth inning off Ivan Nova (7-7) for his 13th home run, a drive deep into the right-center seats that was the game’s only extra-base hit. Chicago (70-50) increased its lead in the NL Central to 3½ games over idle Milwaukee while moving a season-high 20 games over .500. Pittsburgh (61-61) lost its fourth straight to fall to .500.
AMERICAN LEAGUE
RAYS 3, YANKEES 1 As he jogged from the bullpen, Tampa Bay rookie left-hander Adam Kolarek reminded himself that he’s pitched out of bases-loaded, no-out situations before. In the minors, at least. Kolarek escaped a critical jam in the ninth inning Thursday for his first career save, lifting the Rays over New York 3-1 to win their first series at Yankee Stadium since 2014. Tampa Bay had lost 12 straight series in the Bronx, a record since the ballpark opened in 2009. The struggling Yankees lineup, still without injured sluggers Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez, scored just six runs during the threegame series. Tommy Pham returned from the disabled list and helped the Rays jump on Masahiro Tanaka (9-3) with an RBI double during a two-run first inning, and Blake Snell (14-5) and the bullpen took over from there. The left-handed All-Star made his third start since a DL stint for left shoulder fatigue and struck out six over five innings of two-hit ball. He was coming off five perfect innings against Toronto, though he was pulled from that start after just 47 pitches. He threw 76 pitches Thursday.
RANGERS 8, ANGELS 6
Jurickson Profar started an especially rare triple play and homered to help the Texas Rangers rally from an early fiverun deficit for an 8-6 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Thursday night. Rougned Odor singled home the go-ahead run in the eighth after an out call that would have ended the inning was reversed. Nomar Mazara went deep in his return from the disabled list, and Joey Gallo also homered for the Rangers. Texas turned the sixth triple play in franchise history in the fourth. With the bases loaded, David Fletcher hit a low liner toward third base that Profar picked on a short hop. Playing near the bag, Profar stepped on third to force out Eric Young Jr. and then tagged Taylor Ward, who had stumbled off the base into foul territory. Profar then threw to Odor, and the second baseman tagged Kole Calhoun between first and second. It was the majors’ first triple play without retiring the batter since June 3, 1912, when the Brooklyn Dodgers turned the trick against the Cincinnati Reds. The Rangers scored three runs in the eighth as Justin Anderson (3-3), the seventh of eight Angels pitcher in a “bullpen game,” allowed the first four batters to reach base.