Full crowd at Wrigley sees Cubs down Cards
DeGrom, Scherzer leave with injuries
CHICAGO — Anthony Rizzo could feel the fans hanging onto each pitch as he fouled off one after another.
When he finally launched one over the right-field wall on the 14th pitch of his at-bat, Wrigley Field rocked in a way it hadn’t in years, with a near-capacity crowd on its feet and roaring. “It was incredible,” Rizzo said. Former Albuquerque Isotope Joc Pederson homered and drove in three runs, Rizzo and Willson Contreras went deep and the Chicago Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardinals 8-5 on Friday.
Wrigley Field allowed 100% capacity for the first time since 2019 on what the Cubs called “Opening Day 2.0.” They fell behind 5-1, then treated a crowd of 35,112 to a comeback win over their NL Central rivals.
METS 3, PADRES 2: In New York, Jacob deGrom was pulled from a do-it-all gem with right flexor tendinitis, a troubling diagnosis for the Mets that clouded a victory over San Diego.
DeGrom (6-2) faced the minimum over six innings and ripped a two-run single, giving him five RBIs this season — compared to four earned runs allowed. He struck out 10 in the abbreviated outing.
DeGrom left after 80 pitches and extending his scoreless streak to 22 innings. He had a no-hit bid until Wil Myers beat the shift with a weak grounder in the fifth.
GIANTS 1, NATIONALS 0: In Washington, Nationals ace Max Scherzer left after just 12 pitches with groin imflammation, Buster Posey homered and San Francisco beat the Nationals on Anthony DeSclafiani’s careerbest two-hitter.
Giants left fielder Michael Tauchman made a leaping catch to rob a home run for the second time in less than a month.
A crowd of 18,029 attended the first game at Nationals Park without capacity limits since the 2019 World Series.
INDIANS 7, MARINERS 0: In Cleveland, Aaron Civale gave up a single to start the game before dominating Seattle’s light-hitting lineup for eight innings, leading the Cleveland to the win in front of the largest crowd at Progressive Field since 2019.
Civale (9-2) allowed J.P. Crawford’s leadoff hit and nothing else to become the first AL pitcher with nine wins.
RAYS 4, ORIOLES 2: In St. Petersburg, Fla., Ryan Yarbrough pitched six solid innings and Tampa Bay became the first team to reach 40 wins this season.
Yarbrough (4-3), the first Rays’ pitcher to go the distance in five years in his previous start, gave up two unearned runs and three hits, striking out six.
MARLINS 4, BRAVES 3: In Miami, Jazz Chisholm’s twoout, two-run single in the fourth inning put Miami ahead to stay, and the Marlins beat Atlanta for the fourth time in five meetings this year.
The Braves have lost three consecutive games by a run each.
REDS 11, ROCKIES 5: In Cincinnati, Joey Votto’s three-run blast highlighted a five-homer effort as Cincinnati extended Colorado’s road woes.
The Rockies fell to 5-25 away from Coors Field and have lost every road series this season.
RED SOX 6, BLUE JAYS 5: In Boston, Alex Verdugo hit a line drive off the Green Monster to drive in the game-winning run in the ninth inning and Boston rallied from a four-run deficit to beat Toronto.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had three of Toronto’s 16 hits, including his major league-leading 19th homer of the season, to help the Blue Jays open a four-run lead in the sixth inning.
ASTROS 6, TWINS 4: In Minneapolis, Martín Maldonado hit a go-ahead double in the ninth and Houston beat Minnesota.
Jose Altuve and Yuli Gurriel homered and Albuquerque native Alex Bregman drove in two runs for Houston, which won for the fourth time in five games.
BREWERS 7, PIRATES 4: In Milwaukee, Christian Yelich hit a bases-loaded double that broke a tie and Pittsburgh relievers issued three consecutive basesloaded walks in a five-run seventh inning that helped fuel Milwaukee’s win.
WHITE SOX 5, TIGERS 4, 10 INNINGS: In Detroit, Liam Hendricks angrily threw a wet ball into foul territory after his first pitch of the ninth inning, leading to a lengthy rain delay, then gave up a tying two-run homer to Daz Cameron before Chicago beat Detroit in 10 innings.
DODGERS 12, RANGERS 1: In Los Angeles, Clayton Kershaw allowed three hits in six innings as the Dodgers routed Texas.
ATHLETICS 4, ROYALS 3: In Oakland, Calif., Elvis Andrus’ RBI single in the bottom of the ninth inning gave the Athletics a win over Kansas City.
Notes
VACCINES: Two additional Major League Baseball teams have been able to relax coronavirus protocols after reaching the 85% vaccination threshold for players and other on-field personnel, raising the total to 22 of the 30 clubs.
However, the pace of vaccinations has slowed and no additional teams were announced as being on track to reach the threshold.
The commissioner’s office and the players’ association said Friday that 85.1% of Tier 1 individuals such as players, managers, coaches, trainers and support personnel had been partially or fully vaccinated, down 0.1% from the previous week, and 83.7% had been fully vaccinated, up 0.8% from the previous week.
There were two positive tests — one for a player and one for a staff member — among 8,868 tests in the past week, a 0.02% positive rate.
So far this season, there have been 65 positive tests — 36 players, 29 staff — among 194,419 samples tested, a 0.03% positive rate. The positive tests are among 25 teams.
Rizzo created a stir before the Cubs-Cardinals game when he told a Chicago radio station he has not been vaccinated.
He called it a “really hard decision on both ends” in an interview with WMVP-AM and basically reiterated that in his postgame media session, though he didn’t completely slam the door on getting one of the vaccines.