Brewers' Woodruff rebounds, prevails
Brandon Woodruff threw five shutout innings and Omar Narváez homered and doubled as the Milwaukee Brewers opened their home schedule with a 5-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Thursday.
Woodruff struck out two and allowed just three hits and a walk to bounce back from an uncharacteristically poor performance in his first start, a 9-0 loss to the Chicago Cubs. The two-time All-Star worked 3 2/3 innings in the Cubs game and gave up seven runs, matching a career high. He had opened the loss to Chicago by walking three men and hitting a batter.
Woodruff had no such control problems, throwing 65 of his 89 pitches for strikes.
MARLINS 4, PHILLIES 3>> Sandy Alcantara allowed two runs in 6 1/3 innings, Joey Wendle had two RBIs and Miami won its home opener.
PIRATES 9, NATIONALS 4>>Bryan Reynolds hit a two-run home run after settling his arbitration case on a $13.5 million, two-year contract, helping host Pittsburgh overcome a three-run deficit.
MARINERS 5, WHITE SOX 1>> Jared Kelenic hit a two-run homer off the right-field foul pole in the second inning, and Seattle Mariners stopped a four-game losing streak with a victory in Chicago on a windy day when popups became adventures. Chicago scored in the fifth after Adam Engel's two-out popup was blown from the middle of the infield into foul territory behind third base and dropped. Engel then reached second when his popup to the first-base side came back and kicked off the mitt of catcher Cal Raleigh in front of the plate for an error. Jake Burger followed with a popup over the mound that drifted to the left side and fell for an RBI single.
NO REGRETS FOR DODGERS' ROBERTS>> Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts' decision to pull Clayton Kershaw while pitching seven perfect innings against Minnesota drew strong reaction and debate around the majors.
Roberts wasn't second-guessing himself a day later: “I can't manage a ballclub and players with my fan cap on,” he said. “There's a cost to everything and I wasn't, and Clayton wasn't, willing to take on that cost.”
Roberts said Kershaw “kind of initiated” the move, which came after 80 pitches in a 7-0 win Wednesday. The three-time Cy Young Award winner struck out 13 of the 21 batters he faced.
Kershaw, 34, has been injured in each of the three previous seasons. He missed more than two months last year with inflammation in his forearm and wasn't able to pitch in the postseason.
He went through an abbreviated spring training because of the lockout and was making his first start of the season Wednesday.