Paredes hits 3 HRs; Rays beat Yankees
Isaac Paredes homered in his first three atbats and the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Yankees 5-4 on Tuesday night, handing New York only its third loss in 20 games.
Paredes, who had four RBIs, combined with Harold Ramirez for back-to-back homers in the first off Nestor Cortes, then put the Rays ahead 3-2 in the third and added a two-run drive in the fifth on the first pitch after Clarke Schmidt relieved.
DODGERS 8, REDS 2 >> Tony Gonsolin became the first pitcher in the majors to win nine games, Freddie Freeman drove in five runs and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds.
Gonsolin (9-0) gave up two runs and three hits through five innings and 87 pitches, relying mostly on a four-seam fastball and mixing in a splitter and slider. The 28-year-old righty has a 1.58 ERA.
PIRATES 7, CUBS 1 >> Bligh Madris hit his first major league home run and fellow rookie Roansy Contreras pitched five solid innings to lead the Pittsburgh Pirates to a victory over the Chicago Cubs.
Madris connected in the sixth inning for a solo shot to right-center field off Mark Leiter Jr. to close the scoring. That came a day after Madris had three hits in his big league debut.
NATIONALS 3, ORIOLES 0 >> Erick Fedde allowed two hits over six innings, and the Washington Nationals beat the Baltimore Orioles for their second straight victory following an eightgame skid.
RED SOX 5, TIGERS 4 >> Trevor Story hit a threerun homer out of Fenway Park, Christian Vázquez added a solo shot for a key run in the seventh inning and the Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers. Boston went ahead 4-3 in the fourth when Story put a hanging a slider from rookie Beau Brieske (1-6) on Lansdowne Street for his 11th homer this season.
LEAGUE STANDARDIZES BASEBALL PREPARATION >> Major League Baseball is standardizing procedures for rubbing baseballs and their removal from humidors in an effort to establish more consistency amid complaints about slickness that followed the crackdown on sticky substances.
MLB has been working on standards over the course of the season in response to feedback from players and sent a memorandum outlining the changes on Tuesday to general managers, assistant GMs and clubhouse managers. Titled “Updates to Baseball Storage & Handling,” a copy of the memo was obtained by The Associated Press.
MLB is mandating a ball be stored in a humidor for at least 14 days before game use, and ball storage must be recorded by the home team's gameday compliance monitor and then certified in a signed form by the clubhouse manager.
The memo followed review of video of each team's procedures.
MLB is instructing that “each club staff member involved in the process should apply mud in a uniform manner ensuring the same mud-to-water ratio is applied to each ball. Rubbing mud should be applied to each baseball for at least 30 seconds, ensuring that mud is rubbed thoroughly and consistently into the entire leather surface of the ball.”