ELDER, BRAVES CRAFT ONE-HITTER VS. STUMBLING YANKS
Bryce Elder and Marcell Ozuna never lost faith in themselves.
It’s sure paying off. Bouncing back from a rough stretch, Elder pitched seven innings to lead a onehitter, getting all the run support he needed when Ozuna hit a three-run homer in the first to lead the Atlanta Braves past the reeling New York Yankees 5-0.
Ronald Acuña Jr. also went deep for the Braves, who have outscored the Yankees 16-3 over the first two games of the series.
“I’m not going to sit up here and say I was always confident,” said Elder, a firsttime All-Star this season but just 1-3 with a 7.94 ERA over his previous six starts. “You just have to say, ‘Forget it. I’m just going to go back to trying to make one pitch at a time.’ Whatever the result is, I can live with it.”
He certainly had no complaints after this one.
DJ LeMahieu singled to center in the second for the lone New York hit, a season low for the Yankees. He was erased on one of four double plays his team hit into — three of them against Elder, who faced just one batter above the minimum.
Elder walked three and struck out three while throwing 94 pitches. A.J. Minter and Kirby Yates finished with a hitless inning apiece for the Braves’ 12th shutout this season.
Tommy John for Rays ace
Tampa Bay ace lefthander Shane McClanahan is scheduled to have Tommy John surgery Monday, and Rays outfielder Manuel Margot will undergo a procedure to remove bone chips from his right elbow.
The 26-year-old McClanahan went on the 60-day injured list with tightness in his pitching forearm and last pitched Aug. 2 at the New York Yankees. He was 11-2 with a 3.29 ERA over 21 starts and 115 innings in his third big-league season after posting double-digit wins each of his previous two years.
Margot will have surgery today and is set to miss up to a month.
She’s Mookie’s namesake
There’s a new baby girl in the world named for
Betts.
The Dodgers slugger was in the on-deck circle awaiting his at-bat at home on Aug. 2 against Oakland. A fan told Betts that if he hit a home run the man would
Mookie
give his soon-to-be born daughter the middle name of “Mookie.”
“I heard this and I laughed, and he said he was serious,” Betts recounted Tuesday in a video on his social media accounts. “I turned around and told him, ‘No, don’t do that, bro. Don’t do that.’ ”
Betts walked up to the plate and hit a 436-foot blast to left field, his longest home run as a Dodger. After circling the bases, he fistbumped with Giuseppe Mancuso.
“A couple weeks later, I see on Twitter the birth certificate for Francesca Mookie Mancuso,” Betts said. “I can’t wait to meet Francesca. That’s going to be my girl, that’s going to be my girl. I thought that was pretty neat.”
Notable
The AL West-leading Rangers signed former twotime All-Star infielder Josh Harrison to a minor league contract on Tuesday, two weeks after he was released by Philadelphia.
• Astros second baseman Jose Altuve left Tuesday’s game against at Miami after fouling the game’s first pitch off his shin. X-rays were negative and Altuve has a left knee contusion, the team said.