Uncategorized

Three major league baseball wild cards end in sweeps

NEW YORK (AP) -- One year after rallying past the Red Sox to win an AL Wild Card Series, the New York Yankees battered Boston.

Max Fried dominated the Red Sox in the playoffs for the second straight year, Cody Bellinger and Luis García Jr. homered, and the Yankees rolled to a 9-2 win Wednesday night that completed a two-game sweep.

“We enjoyed tonight. We got a lot more work to do,” Bellinger said.

New York will face AL East champion Tampa Bay in an AL Division Series starting Saturday.

“The fans were electric from the first pitch and the boys were hungry. We got a young, hungry team here,” Yankees captain Aaron Judge said as teammates sprayed him with bubbly during the clubhouse celebration. “This makes me feel young every single time.”

Judge missed this series because of a calf injury and isn’t sure whether he will play against the Rays, who beat New York 7-6 in the season series.

“Saturday’s a long ways away,” he said.

Clinging to a 2-1 lead after Willson Contreras homered to end Boston’s 26-inning postseason scoreless streak, the Yankees broke open the game with a six-run sixth after Spencer Jones reached on a wild pitch while striking out leading off -- with the help of a video review.

García, acquired at the trade deadline, had three hits in his first postseason start, and Bellinger had four RBIs that included a three-run homer capping the sixth-inning burst that put New York ahead 8-1.

“Step one,” said Bellinger, who caught the ceremonial first pitch from his dad, Clay, a 2000 Yankees World Series champion. “Now we got to go into Tampa and play against a tough team.”

Boston, which reached the playoffs after rebounding from a 32-46 start, lost last year’s wild-card matchup after defeating the Yankees in the opener.

“Regardless of all the special things that happened this summer, and there was quite a few, the goal is to win the World Series and that ended for us tonight, so it’s frustrating,” Red Sox manager Chad Tracy said. “There’s a lot of things you can say, but in the moment right now, I think the guys only care that we lost. And it’s going to take some time to get over that.”

Boston, which also got a seventh-inning homer from Nick Sogard off Will Warren, was missing leadoff hitter Roman Anthony because of a hand injury. The Red Sox were held to a .117 average in the series (7 for 60) with 18 strikeouts and outscored 18-2.

Every starter had a hit for New York, which batted .382 in the series. Boston’s bullpen had a 20.25 ERA.

“We played great baseball in a lot of ways here, obviously anchored by our two great starters,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.

Yankees batters hit .450 (9 for 20) with runners in scoring position after finishing 19th among the 30 teams with a .246 RISP during the regular season.

“I feel like it’s a whole new level from regular season to these last two days,” Austin Wells said.

A day after Cam Schlittler led New York to a 9-0 win, Fried pitched three-hit ball over six innings to win a postseason game for the first time since the 2021 World Series clincher with Atlanta.

New York started eight left-handed hitters against Sonny Gray, back on the mound where his career derailed during a dismal Yankees stretch in 2017 and ’18.

García’s fourth-inning homer put the Yankees ahead and Bellinger, one of the top lefty-on-lefty hitters in the major leagues, added a fifth-inning RBI single against left-handed Erik Miller, who had just relieved.

Gray was disappointed he wasn’t allowed to face Bellinger.

“I think I’m the best pitcher in the American League going through the order a third time. I think that’s a fact,” Gray said. “I would’ve liked to live or die with me in that moment, but that’s the competitor I am. And, yeah, I think you can probably ask the guys and they felt the same way. So I felt strong. I felt confident. I felt convicted.”

Jones struck out both to start and end the bottom of the sixth, a weird half-inning that included a wild pitch, throwing error, stolen base, bunt single and intentional walk to Ben Rice that preceded Bellinger’s homer.

“I can’t believe they were willing to face a guy like Belli with men on base there,” Rice said.

Garrett Crochet, who beat the Yankees in last year’s Wild Card Series opener, hadn’t pitched since April 25 because of left shoulder inflammation when he bounced a sweeper off Adley Rutschman’s chest. The catcher picked up the ball and threw to first, where umpire John Libka signaled that Jones was out. The Yankees appealed and the call was reversed by the video umpire at the commissioner’s office.

“I couldn’t believe he was there,” Boone said. “I saw the ball squirt away a little bit. I didn’t think that much of it, and looked up and I was, like, ‘Oh, he’s safe.”’

Jones swiped second and kept going to third when Rutschman’s throw skipped into center. Rookie George Lombard Jr. singled for his first postseason RBI, Jazz Chisholm Jr. singled and Trent Grisham loaded the bases with a bunt single.

Wells’ sacrifice fly against Garrett Whitlock increased the lead to 4-1, Ryan McMahon hit an RBI groundout and Rice, who had four hits and six RBIs in the opener, was intentionally walked. Bellinger reached down and pulled a changeup into the right-center field seats.

Fried struck out six and walked one. He has allowed one run over 12 1/3 innings in the two Wild Card Series against the Red Sox.

PADRES 4, CUBS 1

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Pinch-hitter Gavin Sheets blasted a two-run homer, five Padres pitchers combined on a five-hitter, and San Diego swept the Chicago Cubs out of the NL Wild Card Series with a 4-1 victory in Game 2 on Wednesday night.

Xander Bogaerts drove in the first run for the surging Padres, who followed up their 8-0 victory in Tuesday’s opener with another dominant mound performance. The Cubs led the majors in runs and the NL in homers this year, but they managed just eight hits -- seven singles -- over 18 innings against San Diego’s inspired staff.

Ethan Salas drove in a run while becoming the youngest player to catch a postseason game in major league history for the Padres, whose 20-3 surge since Sept. 5 has them looking like a threat in the NL. With their fifth playoff series victory in the past seven years, the Padres advanced to face the MLB-best Milwaukee Brewers in an NL division series this weekend.

“It’s our entire group coming together, finding ways to win ballgames over and over,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said between puffs on a cigar in the Padres’ beer-soaked clubhouse. “This feels great, but we’ve already been to this part before, and we’re all so hungry to go farther.”

One year after the Cubs eliminated the Padres in three tough Wild Card games at Wrigley Field, the Padres reversed the result in two romps before frenzied sellout crowds at Petco Park.

“It’s nice to finish in two,” manager Craig Stammen said. “Saves our bullpen a little bit, and we can decide who’s going to start Game 1. We haven’t decided that yet, but it definitely sets us up better with two days off. Get those guys fresh and ready to go.”

Nico Hoerner had half of the Cubs’ hits in the series, and he drove in Chicago’s only run in the fourth inning. He also got their only extra-base hit of the series with a ninth-inning double off Mason Miller, but the Padres’ vaunted closer calmly finished the save and set off another massive celebration on the field.

“It didn’t go well here,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “We just didn’t play well enough. They’re playing really well. We just couldn’t get anything going offensively, obviously. Look, when you’re in this position, you’re going to be disappointed. You’re going to feel unfulfilled, and that’s just dominating everything you feel right now. Maybe as you reflect, I think I can get to some better places. Right now, that’s all I feel.”

Probable NL MVP Pete Crow-Armstrong and veteran slugger Alex Bregman struggled mightily atop the Cubs’ lineup in San Diego, going a combined 0 for 15 with a walk and eight strikeouts over these two games. Bregman played just over a week after he was hit in the face with a foul ball.

“Those were the two guys we marked as we don’t want those guys to beat us in this series,” Stammen said. “We tried our best to set up our pitching to handle them. In the first game, we were just lucky we got out to a bigger lead. It’s a lot easier to pitch to those guys with a bigger lead.”

After hitting two homers in the first inning of Game 1, the Padres waited until the second inning of Game 2 to take a 2-0 lead. Ty France led off with a double off Kevin Gausman and scored on Bogaerts’ single before Salas hit a line-drive flyout to center, scoring Jackson Merrill.

Salas, the prized 20-year-old prospect recalled Sept. 1, also became the youngest player to appear in a postseason game for the Padres.

Chicago finally scored when Seiya Suzuki singled and eventually came home on Hoerner’s ground ball to center off Nick Pivetta. Stammen immediately yanked his starter in favor of his intimidating bullpen, and Bradgley Rodríguez escaped a bases-loaded jam.

Rodríguez also pitched the fifth to earn the victory in his postseason debut.

“Those guys, they’re so good at what they do,” Pivetta said. “It was a pleasure to watch.”

After Bogaerts’ double chased Gausman in the fourth, Sheets crushed a 100.8 mph fastball from Daniel Palencia into the right-field bleachers. Sheets, the fan-favorite outfielder who is playing with a nagging plantar injury in his left foot, delivered his second career postseason homer and his first since 2021 as a White Sox rookie.

WHITE SOX 8, ASTROS 3

HOUSTON (AP) -- From 100 losses to their first playoff series win in two decades, these scrappy Chicago White Sox just keep outdoing themselves.

The White Sox used a big first inning and a three-run homer from Chase Meidroth to propel them to a 7-3 win over the Houston Astros on Wednesday to sweep their AL Wild Card Series.

“I’m proud of the guys and certainly happy for them as they’re probably the only ones in this country that believed that they could be in this spot,” manager Will Venable said. “And they maintained that belief in the beginning of the season and went throughout the season maintaining that, and they made it happen. So it’s awesome to get to this point.”

It’s the first time Chicago has won a playoff series since beating Houston in the World Series in 2005. Under the direction of Venable, the second-year skipper, and with a letter of support from Pope Leo XIV, the White Sox advanced to face AL Central champion Cleveland in the AL Division Series beginning Saturday in Cleveland.

“It means everything for our fans,” Meidroth said. “They have been incredible all year. So the main thing was getting back to Chicago for some postseason baseball, and so we’re really blessed that we get to do that.”

The White Sox, who lost 100 games in each of the last three seasons, are the only team in major league history to follow consecutive 100-loss seasons with a playoff berth.

The AL West-winning Astros went 81-81 to become the first team to reach the postseason without a winning record. Their recent playoff woes in Houston continued Wednesday as they dropped their ninth straight home playoff game in a ninth trip to the postseason in the last 10 years.

Chicago pounced on the Astros for four runs in the first inning a day after scoring three in the first two innings of a 6-3 win. Houston ace Hunter Brown was lifted after getting just two outs and wasn’t helped by a sloppy defense which committed two first-inning errors.

He was 6-0 with a 2.39 ERA in six career starts against the White Sox before Wednesday’s debacle.

The Astros clawed their way back into it with solo home runs from Jeremy Peña, Cam Smith and Jose Altuve to trail by 1 entering the sixth inning.

AJ Blubaugh, who opened Game 1, and Peter Lambert, pitching on two days’ rest, combined to retire the next 13 batters after Brown exited. Chicago’s next baserunner came when Lambert walked Andrew Benintendi to start the sixth and then walked Tristan Peters.

Bryan Abreu came in, and Meidroth smashed his fifth pitch off the wall in left field to push the lead to 7-3. He yelled on his entire trip around the bases to the delight of a patch of White Sox fans seated near the visitor’s dugout.

The Astros had a shot to take the lead before Meidroth’s homer. They loaded the bases with two outs in the fifth, but Anthony Kay retired Altuve on a fly out to end the inning.