Rendon’s slam carries Nationals over Braves
As the entire stadium erupted around him, Anthony Rendon put his head down for another routine trip around the bases.
The evenkeeled third baseman hit a tiebreaking grand slam in the sixth inning, and the host Nationals beat Atlanta 63 in Washington on Monday night in the opener of a threegame series to close to 4½ games back of the NL East leader. “Hit it far and loud,” manager Dave Martinez said. “It was clutch.”
With the score 22, Rendon connected off of Chad Sobotka for his 23rd home run this season and third career slam, raising his career RBI total to 500. Rendon, who had two hits, is hitting .370 in his past 19 games with nine doubles, three homers and 20 RBIs.
“I wanted to be ready for the fastball, be on time, just see something over the middle of the plate,” Rendon said.
Patrick Corbin (95) allowed two runs and five hits in six innings, striking out eight and walking one.
Dallas Keuchel (34) gave up four runs, six hits and four walks in 51⁄3 innings. “Very disappointing. That’s about it,” said Keuchel, who expressed frustration with umpire Adam Hamari’s strike zone. “I thought I punched out about 10 guys. I got rewarded with extra atbats. That’s where that lies.” Reds 11, Pirates 6: Jose Iglesias’ grand slam completed Cincinnati’s 10-run second inning in a win over visiting Pittsburgh. Marlins 11, Diamondbacks 6: Caleb Smith endured a bad stretch after a baserunning adventure and recovered to pitch seven innings as host Miami beat Arizona. Blue Jays 7, Royals 3: Cavan Biggio hit the go-ahead homer in the eighth inning, Randal Grichuk and Teoscar Hernandez also went deep, and visiting Toronto rallied past Kansas City. Rockies 9, Dodgers 1: Jon Gray allowed three hits over eight innings to win for the first time in a month, and Colorado beat visiting Los Angeles. Tigers 7, Angels 2: Miguel Cabrera homered and drove in three runs as Detroit won in Anaheim. Padres 8, Orioles 1: Eric Hosmer homered twice and knocked in five runs to lead host San Diego.