The New York Yankees earned their first win this season after rookie Yangervis Solarte had three hits in his first major league start and Derek Jeter drove in a run to beat the Houston Astros 4-2 on Thursday.
Solarte singled during a two-run third inning, which put New York up 2-1. He doubled in the fifth and scored on a single by Jeter to make it 3-1.
Houston cut the lead to one in the bottom half, before Solarte came through again, this time with a single that drove in Ichiro Suzuki.
Photo: AFP
Ivan Nova (1-0) allowed two runs and six hits in 5 2/3 innings. David Robertson, who took over as closer for Mariano Rivera, pitched a perfect ninth for his first save.
In other American League games, the Tampa Bay Rays trounced the Toronto Blue Jays 7-2, the Minnesota Twins edged the Chicago White Sox 10-9 and the Oakland Athletics beat the Seattle Mariners 3-2 over 12 innings.
The National League’s St Louis Cardinals overcame another long delay and two homers from Todd Frazie, holding on to beat the Cincinnati Reds 7-6 to take two of three in their season-opening series.
The first pitch was delayed by 3 hours, 42 minutes because of rain. The Cardinals then emerged from their two-game hitting slump by knocking Homer Bailey (0-1) out of the game in the fifth inning. Jhonny Peralta homered to get it going.
San Francisco’s Angel Pagan hit a three-run home run in a five-run eighth inning as the Giants rallied to beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 8-5 in a game that was halted briefly in the top of the first due to a swarm of bees in the outfield.
Paul Goldschmidt and Mark Trumbo each hit two-run home runs and Arizona led 5-3 after seven, but the Giants teed off on reliever Will Harris (0-1) in the eighth to take three of four games from the Diamondbacks.
Brandon Belt hit his third home run of the series, and Brandon Hicks had a pinch-hit solo shot for the Giants.
Also in the National League, the Washington Nationals downed the New York Mets 8-2, the Florida Marlins beat the Colorado Rockies 8-5 and the Chicago Cubs were 3-2 winners over the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Fenerbahce on Thursday earned a rare 2-1 win in England, but were still knocked out of the UEFA Europa League by Nottingham Forest in the playoffs. Forest entered the second leg with a healthy 3-0 lead from the opener in Istanbul — where Vitor Pereira made an impact in his first game in charge — and that proved enough to advance to the round-of-16 with a 4-2 aggregate score. The result was a boost for Forest, struggling at 17th place in the Premier League, in their return to Europe after three decades. They next face Real Betis Balompie or Kerem Akturkoglu gave Fenerbahce
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