Yankees on form as Jays are downed
TORONTO: Masahiro Tanaka allowed just five hits for his first complete game in more than a year, leading the New York Yankees to a 4-1 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday.
The Yankees won their third straight following a five-game skid and extended their AL East lead over Toronto to 1½ games. The Blue Jays, coming off an 11-game winning streak, lost for the second day in a row to New York.
Carlos Beltran, who hit a big home run on Friday night at Rogers Centre, and Mark Teixeira connected for solo shots to back Tanaka (9-5).
Tanaka struck out eight and walked three while helping the Yankees rest their taxed bullpen.
Boston’s Jackie Bradley Jr hit two homers and three doubles to drive in seven runs as the Red Sox battered Felix Hernandez and the Seattle Mariners 22-10.
The Red Sox broke loose for the second straight day after manager John Farrell took a medical l eave for the rest of the season to deal with lymphoma.
Boston got 26 hits in the highestscoring game ever against the Mariners. Pablo Sandoval and Alejandro De Aza homered, and David Ortiz and Blake Swihart each had three RBIs. Sandoval homered in his first at-bat, then was hit in the right elbow by Hernandez and left with a bruise.
Nelson Cruz hit his major league-leading 35th homer for the Mariners.
In Houston, Victor Martinez hit a tiebreaking RBI double in a three-run 11th inning as the Detroit Tigers outlasted the Houston Astros 4-2.
Preston Tucker led off the bottom of the ninth with a homer to right-centre against Bruce Rondon to tie the score at 1-1, spoiling an impressive start by Justin Verlander.
JD Martinez and Tyler Collins followed Victor Martinez with back-to-back runscoring singles off Pat Neshek (3-3) to make it 4-1 in the 11th.
Pittsburgh pinch-hitter Chris Stewart singled home the go-ahead run in the 14th inning as the Pirates beat the New York Mets 5-3 in extra innings again.
A day after the Pirates won 3-2 in the 10th at Citi Field, they took advantage of shaky fielding decision to stop the NL East leaders.
The Cincinnati Twins downed the Cleveland Indians 4-1 after Tyler Duffey took a no-hit bid into the sixth inning of his second big league game, while Baltimore slugger Chris Davis hit two home runs, the second a tie-breaking shot with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning off switchpitcher Pat Venditte, to lift the Orioles over the Oakland Athletics 4-3.
In other games, the San Francisco Giants beat the Washington Nationals 12-6 while the St Louis Cardinals defeated the Miami Marlins 6-2.