AROUND THE HORN
Phillies:
Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber and Odúbel Herrera homered as interim manager Rob Thomson and the streaking Phillies won their season-high seventh straight game, beating the sagging Brewers 8-3 on Thursday. The NL Centralleading Brewers lost their season-worst sixth in a row. It was the second consecutive three-game sweep for the Phillies under Thomson. He took over last Friday after manager Joe Girardi was fired, and the Phillies swept the Angels before heading to Milwaukee. Didi Gregorius singled, tripled, doubled and drove in a run for the Phillies. Andrew McCutchen singled home a run in the ninth to pull the Brewers within five runs. With two on, Jace Peterson then was initially ruled safe on an RBI single, but was called out after a replay reversal. Reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes (3-4) and Phillies starter Zach Eflin were both out of the game by the end of the fifth. Harper and Herrera homered for the second straight day.
Rays: Shane McClanahan pitched eight superb innings to win his fifth consecutive start and the Rays completed a threegame sweep of the visiting Cardinals with a 2-1 victory. Ji-Man Choi hit a two-run HR as the Rays moved a season-high 11 games over .500. McClanahan (7-2) allowed one unearned run, two hits, walked one and struck out nine. The lefty, who leads the majors with 98 strikeouts, has given up just five runs over 40 innings in his last six starts. It was the first time McClanahan has pitched into the eighth inning. Jason Adam worked the ninth to get to his second save. Miles Mikolas (4-4) had an eight-inning complete game, allowing three hits and striking out nine. The right-hander was the first Cards pitcher to have a complete game and lose since Adam Wainwright on April 26, 2021, against the Phillies. The Cards’ Paul Goldschmidt extended his career-best on-base streak to 45 games with a two-out walk in the sixth.
Extra innings: C Tyler Stephenson is expected to miss 4 to 6 weeks due to a fractured right thumb suffered in the Reds’ 5-4 loss to the Diamondbacks. Stephenson is hitting .309 with five HRs and 31 RBIs . ... C Willson Contreras and the Cubs agreed to a one-year, $9.625 million contract, avoiding an arbitration hearing . ... C Gary Sanchez and the Twins agreed to a one-year, $9 million contract, avoiding an arbitration hearing . ... Lawyers for Ángel Hernández claim Major League Baseball manipulated the umpire’s evaluations, renewing the allegation in an attempt to reinstate the racial discrimination lawsuit he lost last year. Hernandez’s lawyers made the claim in a filing Tuesday to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, trying to overturn the summary judgment U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken granted to MLB in March 2021. The Cubaborn Hernández was hired as a big league ump in 1993. He sued in 2017, alleging he was discriminated against because he hadn’t been assigned to the World Series since 2005 and had been passed over for crew chief.