MAJOR LEAGUES
Liam Hendriks won his season debut and Steve Tolleson hit a two-run home run as the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Oakland Athletics 3-2 in the American League on Friday for their ninth victory in 11 games.
Brandon Moss homered for the seventh time in 18 games for the Athletics, who came into the game with MLB’s best record, but lost their second straight following a five-game winning streak. Oakland’s loss was just their third in the past 14 games.
Photo: AFP
Hendriks (1-0) allowed one run and three hits in 5-2/3 innings. Tolleson hit Toronto’s MLB-leading 68th home run when he connected off Scott Kazmir (5-2) in the second, his first of the year.
In other games, the Detroit Tigers ended a four-game losing streak with a 7-2 win over the Texas Rangers and the Los Angeles Angels moved to a season-best seven games over .500 with a 6-1 victory over the Kansas City Royals. The Milwaukee Brewers won a record-setting slugfest against the Miami Marlins 9-5, while the Cincinnati Reds topped the St Louis Cardinals 5-3 to tighten the top of the National League Central division.
Austin Jackson and Andrew Romine homered for Detroit, and Ian Kinsler doubled three times against his former team. Anibal Sanchez (2-2) allowed two runs and five hits over seven innings.
Romine’s solo homer in the sixth was the first of his career.
Los Angeles’ Mike Trout homered and threw out a runner at third base, and Chris Iannetta also went deep for the Angels, who won for the 11th time in 14 games.
C.J. Wilson (6-3) allowed a run and four hits in 6-1/3 innings, striking out three and walking four. Wilson also hit two batters, including leadoff man Nori Aoki, with his 105th and final pitch.
Milwaukee’s Mark Reynolds hit a pair of two-run homers in the fourth and the fifth, increasing his season total to 11. It was his 20th career multi-homer game.
Giancarlo Stanton and Garrett Jones hit two solo homers apiece for Miami, and Khris Davis homered for Milwaukee.
The teams combined for seven homers, the most since the pitcher-friendly Marlins Park opened in 2012.
Stanton’s two homers increased his season total to 14, most in the National League. His 47 RBIs lead the majors.
In Cincinnati, Todd Frazier hit a three-run homer off Shelby Miller and Devin Mesoraco added a solo shot for the Reds, who moved within three games of the second-place Cardinals in the division and 1.5 games ahead of Pittsburgh.
Miller (6-3) had won six straight decisions, the best such streak of his career. He allowed five runs in five innings, including Frazier’s ninth homer in the third inning.
Elsewhere in the league, Tampa Bay’s pinch-hitter Cole Figueroa had an RBI double in the bottom of the ninth inning to lead the Rays past the reeling Boston Red Sox 1-0.
The Red Sox have lost eight in a row, their longest skid since dropping the final eight games of the 2012 season.
The Baltimore Orioles ended the Cleveland Indians’ four-game winning streak with an 8-4 victory. Chris Davis homered and had four RBIs, while Adam Jones had three hits and scored three runs for the Orioles.
The Los Angeles Dodgers beat Philadelphia 2-0, with Clayton Kershaw (3-1) limiting the Phillies to just two hits in six innings.
Kershaw bounced back from his roughest outing in two years with an excellent performance, striking out nine. The two-time Cy Young Award winner allowed seven runs in 1-2/3 innings in an 18-7 loss to Arizona on Saturday last week.
Pittsburgh’s Charlie Morton worked into the sixth inning to end a lengthy losing streak as the Pirates beat the Washington Nationals 4-3.
Morton (1-6) allowed one run on five hits in 5-2/3 innings for his first victory since September.
San Diego’s Yonder Alonso and Yasmani Grandal homered, and Chase Headley drove in three runs as the Padres ended a four-game skid with an 11-1 rout of the Chicago Cubs.
The Atlanta Braves beat the Colorado Rockies 3-2, the San Francisco Giants defeated the Minnesota Twins 6-2 and the Seattle Mariners topped the Houston Astros 6-1.
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