Brewers blank Cardinals, close in on NL Central title; Rays edge Angels
Wade Miley, J.B. Bukauskas and Julio Teheran combined on a six-hitter as the visiting Milwaukee Brewers blanked the St. Louis Cardinals 6-0 on Thursday to inch closer to the National League Central title.
Victor Caratini hit a three-run homer and Blake Perkins hit a solo shot for the Brewers (87-66), who reduced their magic number to win the division to three games. Milwaukee is closing in on its fifth playoff appearance in six seasons.
The Cardinals (67-86) have lost three straight games and five of their past seven.
Miley (9-4) allowed three hits and two walks with seven strikeouts in six innings. Bukauskas gave up two hits in one inning and Teheran handled the last two frames to complete the shutout.
Cardinals starting pitcher Miles Mikolas (7-13) allowed six runs (five earned) on nine hits in five innings. He struck out four and walked one.
Mikolas dodged major trouble in the first inning. Sal Frelick led off the game with a single, then William Contreras grounded into a double play. Mark Canha followed with a double and Willy Adames walked, but
Rowdy Tellez grounded out to strand the runners.
The Cardinals stranded two runners of their own in the second inning. Jordan Walker walked with one out and raced to third on Jose Fermin’s two-out single, but Miley struck out Masyn Winn to end the threat.
Perkins broke the scoreless tie in third inning with his homer, his third of the season.
Sloppy Cardinals fielding helped the Brewers increase their lead to 2-0 in the fifth inning.
Brice Turang led off by reaching third base on two errors by Walker in right field. First Walker failed to catch Turang’s fly ball, then he made a wild throw back to the infield.
Frelick hit a foul popup that catcher Andrew Knizner lost in the sun, then made the most of his second chance with an RBI single.
The Brewers pushed their lead to 6-0 in the sixth inning. Adames hit a double, moved to third on Tellez’s single and scored on Andruw Monasterio’s single.
Caratini followed with a three-run blast, his seventh homer of the season, to put the game away.
Rays 5, Angels 4: Manuel Margot delivered a game-ending two-out RBI single to right field in the ninth inning as host Tampa
Bay rallied to defeat Los Angeles. Trailing 4-3 in the ninth, Tampa Bay (94-60) tied the score off Los Angeles closer Carlos Estevez (5-5) when Isaac Paredes hit an RBI single with one out.
After a strikeout and a walk to load the bases, Margot hit a broken-bat flare off a 1-2 slider into shallow right to score Yandy Diaz and end the game.
Rays starter Zach Eflin, who leads the American League with 15 wins, gave up two runs and six hits over five innings, with 10 strikeouts.
ETC.
Tigers: Detroit Tigers named Jeff Greenberg as the franchise’s 20th general manager on Thursday. Greenberg, 37, spent 11 seasons in the Chicago Cubs organization — the last three as assistant general manager — before working the past 16 months as an associate GM with the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks.
The Tigers (71-81), who are about to miss the playoffs for the ninth straight season, have been without a GM since firing Al Avila in August 2022.
Before his time in Chicago, Greenberg was an intern with the Pittsburgh Pirates (2006, 2008), Arizona Diamondbacks (2010) and Major League Baseball (2009-11).