Yanks drop finale, will face Indians in playoffs
NEW YORK — The Miami Marlins ended a streak of 10 straight losing seasons, beating the New York Yankees 5-0 Sunday behind a home run and three RBIs from rookie Jazz Chisholm.
Miami (31-29) finished third in the NL East and earned the NL’s sixth seed and a matchup at the Chicago Cubs in the first round. This will be the Marlins’ first postseason appearance since beating the Yankees in the 2003 World Series. Miami lost an NL-worst 105 games last year.
Chisholm hit a two-run double in Miami’s three-run second off rookie Clark Schmidt (0-1), who made his first big league start, and homered off Nick Nelson in the eighth. Brian Anderson homered against Jonathan Holder, and Corey Dickerson hit an RBI single for Miami. .
Daniel Castano (1-2) pitched 6 1/3 innings for his first career win. Schmidt allowed three runs and four hits in four innings.
The Marlins lost outfielder Starling Marte and righthander Jose Urena to injuries in the first three innings. Marte left with a bruised left ear after being hit by Clarke Schmidt’s 94 mph fastball in the second. Urena, a candidate for Miami’s bullpen in the postseason, was hit on the right hand by DJ LeMahieu’s liner in the third.
Streaky New York (33-27) finished seven games behind Tampa Bay and hung on for the AL’s fifth seed when Toronto third-place Toronto (32-28) lost to Baltimore. The Yankees will play at Cleveland in the first round after a season in which they started 16-6, lost
15 of 20, won 10 in a row and lost six of their last eight.
LeMahieu had two hits to finish with a .364 batting average and became the first player to win undisputed batting titles in both the American and National Leagues. LeMahieu won the NL batting title with a .348 average for Colorado in
2016. His average was the highest for an AL batting champion since Minnesota’s Joe Mauer hit .365 in
2009.
Ed Delahanty hit .410 for the Philadelphia Phillies to win the NL championship in 1899. He is credited by some researchers with the
1902 AL championship at
.376, while others accept Nap Lajoie as winning that title at .378 despite lacking the plate appearances required in more modern times.
LeMahieu became the first Yankee to win the batting crown since Bernie Williams in 1998. He became just the fourth Yankees player to lead the majors in batting average after Lou Gehrig in 1934, Joe DiMaggio in 1939 and Mickey Mantle and 1956.
Luke Voit finished with
22 homers, joining Babe Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Alex Rodriguez as Yankees to lead the majors in home runs.
RED SOX 9, BRAVES 1:
At Atlanta, Jackie Bradley Jr. homered and made a leaping catch as the lastplace Boston Red Sox won their final game under manager Ron Roenicke, beating playoff-bound Atlanta.
The NL East champion Braves wound up as the No. 2 seed and will face Cincinnati in a best-of-three playoff series starting Wednesday. All games will be played in Atlanta.
Braves star outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr. was scratched with left wrist irritation and right-handed reliever Chris Martin exited with right groin discomfort.
Bradley had three hits,
including a go-ahead home run, and made another superb play in center field.
The Red Sox announced before the final regularseason game that Roenicke will not return as manager next season. Boston won two of three from the Braves and finished 24-36.
Bradley, heading toward free agency, gave Boston a
2-1 lead with his fourthinning homer to left-center off Will Smith (2-1).
J.D. Martinez had a tworun homer, the biggest hit in Boston’s five-run seventh off Luke Jackson. Xander Bogaerts and Jonathan Arauz also homered. Arauz had three hits and drove in three runs.
Nick Pivetta (2-0) allowed one run on four hits and two walks in five innings.
Marcell Ozuna hit a 468foot homer, his NL-leading
18th, off Pivetta in the first. Ozuna also led the NL with
56 RBIs and hit .338. Freddie Freeman (.341) and Ozuna finished second and third, respectively, behind NL batting champion Juan Soto (.351) of Washington.
NATIONALS 15, METS 5:
At Washington, Juan Soto became the National League’s youngest batting champion, Trea Turner hit a grand slam and drove in seven runs, and Washington closed out the season with a victory over New York.
Soto walked and singled before being lifted for a pinch hitter in the third inning, elevating his average to .351 and sealing the NL lead in the category.
The 21-year-old Soto surpassed Brooklyn’s Pete Reiser for the youngest ever to take a batting crown. Reiser was 22 when he ended the 1941 season hitting a league-leading .343.
Soto held off Atlanta teammates Freddie Freeman (.341) and Marcell Ozuna (.338) and also finished 2020 with the major league-lead in on-base percentage (.490) and slugging percentage (.695).
Yan Gomes also homered for Washington, which closed the season on a three-game winning streak and caught the Mets in the NL East standings. The Nationals finished 26-34 a year after winning their first World Series. The Nationals’ .433 winning percentage in the truncated season was the lowest for a defending champion since the 1998 Florida Marlins went 54-108 (.333).
New York slipped from 86-76 last season and third place in the NL East to 26-34 and tied for fourth in manager Luis Rojas’ first season.
Pete Alonso homered twice for New York and finished with 16 after clubbing a rookie-record 53 last season. Guillermo Heredia added a solo shot for the Mets.
EPPLER FIRED
The Los Angeles Angels fired general manager Billy Eppler on Sunday after the long-struggling franchise finished its fifth consecutive losing season under his watch.
Eppler, a former pitcher at UConn, was under contract for one more year with the Angels in an extension he signed in July with no public announcement, but team president John Carpino said the franchise will seek new baseball leadership after missing the playoffs for a sixth straight year.
The Angels have endured a historically bad half-decade during Eppler’s tenure despite many positive movesmade by the former New York Yankees executive, all while dealing with the spending whims of owner Arte Moreno.
But Eppler was dismissed when the Angels couldn’t even make the eight-team AL playoff field this month. Los Angeles finished 26-34 in the pandemic-shortened season with a star-studded roster including three-time AL MVP Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon, three-time NL MVP Albert Pujols and Shohei Ohtani playing for manager Joe Maddon.
“Billy and I really, I thought, were great together,” Maddon said after the Angels ended their season with a 5-0 loss to the Dodgers. “From the moment I met him, I thought toP myself, ‘This is a straight-up guy. Absolutely straight-up.’ One of the most honest people I’ve met in this industry. Great talent evaluator.“
“I’m certain he’s going to land firmly on his feet, but our friendship will endure, he and I. I really enjoyed our time together, and I told him so,” he said.
Eppler’s Angels went 332-376 (.469) under three managers with a rotating cast of supporting players around Trout and Pujols.