Anibal Sanchez took a no-hitter into the ninth inning before Minnesota’s Joe Mauer broke it up with a one-out single in the Detroit Tigers’ 6-0 victory over the Twins on Friday.
Sanchez fell two outs shy of his second career no-hitter, but the performance was his second gem in about a month — he set a franchise record with 17 strikeouts in eight marvelous innings against the Atlanta Braves on April 26.
Sanchez (5-4) struck out 12 on Friday and allowed three walks, with just one hit against over the nine innings.
Photo: AFP
The home crowd gave him a standing ovation when he came out to start the ninth and he immediately struck out Jamey Carroll. Mauer followed with a clean line drive up the middle — to almost the same spot where Pittsburgh’s Josh Harrison’s hit landed last year when he broke up a no-hit bid by Detroit’s Justin Verlander, also with two outs to go.
Sanchez instinctively reached up for Mauer’s hit, but there was no chance for anyone — least of all the pitcher — to catch it. Sanchez then jerked his head back and spun in frustration, but with a bit of a smile on his face.
After he struck out the next two hitters to end the game, he shared a hug with catcher Alex Avila. Sanchez threw 130 pitches.
Elsewhere, an injury to outfielder Curtis Granderson marred the New York Yankees’ 9-4 victory at the Tampa Bay Rays.
Granderson broke the knuckle on his left pinky finger after being hit by a Cesar Ramos pitch in the fifth inning. After later scoring, he was replaced defensively by Ichiro Suzuki in the bottom of the inning.
Yankees manager Joe Girardi had no official time line for how long Granderson would be out, but indicated it could be a minimum of four weeks.
“It is what it is,” said Granderson, who will see a hand specialist in New York tomorrow. “You can’t change it right now, you’ve got to move forward.”
In Kansas City, Mike Trout had his 21st multi-hit game and Jason Vargas pitched into the eighth inning as the Los Angeles Angels beat the Kansas City Royals 5-2 to extend their winning streak to six games.
Trout had two hits, stole his 11th base and scored two runs, including one on a wild pitch.
In other American League games, the Baltimore Orioles beat the Toronto Blue Jays 10-6, Mike Carp hit a three-run homer as the Boston Red Sox rolled the Cleveland Indians 8-1, the Texas Rangers beat the Seattle Mariners 9-5 and the Oakland Athletics edged the Houston Astros 6-5.
Jordan Zimmermann became the National League’s first eight-game winner as the Washington Nationals followed a calamitous road trip with a winning start to a homestand, beating the Philadelphia Phillies 5-2.
Zimmermann (8-2) allowed two runs and six hits with no walks over seven innings — actually raising his ERA to 1.71 — on an unseasonably chilly and windy night in the nation’s capital.
Joey Votto extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a homer, while Ryan Hanigan and Brandon Phillips also homered, powering the Cincinnati Reds to their fourth straight win, 7-4 over the Chicago Cubs.
In other National League games, the Milwaukee Brewers had a narrow 2-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Arizona Diamondbacks scored a 5-2 victory over the San Diego Padres, the Colorado Rockies dismantled defending champions the San Francisco Giants 5-0, the St Louis Cardinals routed the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-0, while the game between the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves was suspended in the eighth inning at 5-5.
In interleague play, the Chicago White Sox edged the Miami Marlins 4-3 in the 11th inning.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later