In St Louis, pinch-hitter Ben Francisco hit a three-run homer in the seventh inning and Philadelphia hung on to edge St Louis and take a 2-1 lead in their National League Division Series.
Francisco came in for pitcher Cole Hamels and broke open a scoreless game with a two-out shot.
Phillies closer Ryan Madson earned his first multiinning save of the year. He came in and got Allen Craig to sharply ground into a double play with the bases loaded to escape in the eighth, then worked around Yadier Molina’s RBI single in the ninth.
The Phillies, favorites to win the World Series after a franchise-record 102-win season, could finish off the wild-card Cardinals in Game 4 yesterday, with Roy Oswalt opposing St Louis’ Edwin Jackson.
Francisco’s shot off Cardinals starter Jaime Garcia was only his second hit in 19 at-bats in the postseason.
“I knew the way the game was going, I was probably going to be in there to pinch-hit off a lefty,” Francisco said. “Got up there with a runner in scoring position, I was just trying to get a hit up the middle and he left one up and luckily it got out of here.”
Hamels struck out eight in six scoreless innings. He’s a franchise-best 7-4 in the postseason with a 3.09 ERA.
The Cardinals frustrated a season-high crowd of 46,914, stranding 14 runners. They set a National League record with 169 double play balls this season.
Albert Pujols and Ryan Theriot had four hits apiece for St Louis, the heavy underdog wild-card winners who had runners in scoring position in six innings. They came up empty despite three hits in the eighth, including a pinch-hit single by Matt Holliday in only his second appearance of the series.
Diamondbacks 8, Brewers 1
In Phoenix, Arizona, Paul Goldschmidt hit a Grand Slam and tied a franchise postseason record with five RBIs as Arizona cruised past Milwaukee, staying alive in the NL Division Series.
Fellow Arizona rookie Josh Collmenter befuddled Milwaukee batters again with his peculiar pitching style as the Diamondbacks cut the deficit in the series to 2-1.
Willie Bloomquist led off Arizona’s first with a single, then swiped second for his third steal of the series. After two outs, Miguel Montero hit a shot deep to center. Nyjer Morgan slammed back-first into the wall, but couldn’t grab the ball as it bounced free, allowing Bloomquist to score. Goldschmidt followed with an opposite-field RBI single.
Corey Hart hit a leadoff homer for the Brewers in the top of the third to cut the gap to 2-1, but Montero hit an RBI single for Arizona in the bottom of the inning to restore the two-run lead.
Montero’s success early in the game led to the fateful decision to intentionally walk him ahead of Goldschmidt in the fifth, loading the bases. With the count 1-2,
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
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Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa yesterday set a women’s only world record of 2 hours, 15 minutes, 50 seconds as she won the London Marathon, while Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe put a star-studded men’s field to the sword. For 28-year-old Assefa it was ample compensation for finishing runner-up in London and the Paris Olympics last year — especially as bitter Dutch rival, the Ethiopia-born Sifan Hassan, finished third. Assefa dropped Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei as the race, played out in blazing sunshine and with thousands lining the route, entered its business end. She came home almost three minutes clear of the Kenyan. Hassan, who beat her in
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