Surging Mets beat Marlins 5-0 for 12th win in 13 games
NEW YORK (AP) — Zack Wheeler pitched eight efficient innings, Wilson Ramos and Pete Alonso homered, and the New York Mets beat the Miami Marlins 5-0 Tuesday night for their 12th win in 13 games.
The hard-charging Mets improved to 58-56 a night after surpassing the .500 mark for the first time since early May. New York has the best record in baseball since the All-Star break and improbably entered the day 2 ½ games behind Philadelphia for an NL wild card despite looking like trade deadline sellers in mid-July.
Wheeler (9-6) cruised through eight innings on 99 pitches against the Marlins, allowing eight hits and striking out five.
Todd Frazier had a two-run double in the first inning and Ramos added a three-run shot in the third. Alonso smoked a solo shot in the fifth, his second connection in two games after going nine without one. Alonso has 36 homers for the season.
Miami right-hander Héctor Noesí (0-1) allowed five runs over five innings in his first major league appearance since 2015.
New York will try to complete a four-game sweep of the Marlins on Wednesday.
WHITE SOX 5, TIGERS 3, 1ST GAME
DETROIT (AP) — José Abreu homered and drove in three runs and Dylan Cease pitched five solid innings to lift Chicago past Detroit in the first game of a doubleheader.
Welington Castillo also homered for Chicago, and Jake Rogers went deep for Detroit.
Cease (2-4) allowed two runs and seven hits, striking out six with one walk. It was his second career victory, and both have come against the Tigers, who are 10-45 since the start of June.
Three relievers finished for the White Sox. Alex Colomé allowed a run in the ninth but held on for his 22nd save in 23 chances.
Daniel Norris (3-9) allowed four runs in 5 2/3 innings.
BOSTON (AP) — Jorge Soler hit a pair of long two-run homers over the Green Monster, Jakob Junis pitched six effective innings and Kansas City snapped a seven-game losing streak.
Ryan O’Hearn also homered for Kansas City, which had lost eight in a row to the Red Sox — its longest slump ever against Boston.
Christian Vázquez had two hits with an RBI double for Boston, which halted its eight-game losing skid a night earlier.
The Red Sox also were held without a home run, ending a club-record stretch of at least one homer in 18 straight games in Fenway Park.
Junis (7-10) escaped a couple of early jams and gave up one run on seven hits, striking out four with one walk.
Andrew Cashner (10-7) gave up six runs on seven hits — three of them homers — over 5 1/3 innings, dropping his record to 1-4 since being traded from Baltimore to the Red Sox.
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Yasmani Grandal had two doubles and an RBI and Milwaukee, without a resting Christian Yelich, beat Pittsburgh for its second straight win.
Grandal drove in Ryan Braun with a double to left-center, the first hit off Pirates starter Steven Brault, in the fifth inning, before scoring when Trent Grisham grounded into a double play as the Brewers moved out to a 2-0 lead.
Bryan Reynolds homered and Francisco Liriano (4-3) took the loss, for Pittsburgh, which is 4-20 since the All-Star break.
Junior Guerra (4-3) picked up the win and Matt Albers earned his second save.
The day off was intended to manage a nagging back injury Yelich has been dealing with this season, manager Craig Counsell said.
