Shohei Ohtani homered to tie for the most by a Japan-born player, but Jackson Merrill singled home the go-ahead run in the 11th inning to lift the San Diego Padres to an 8-7 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday.
Ohtani took Michael King deep with one out in the first inning for his fourth home run of the season and 175th of his career, tying him with Hideki Matsui, who played 10 seasons in the majors from 2003-12.
Mookie Betts, Max Muncy and Teoscar Hernandez also homered for the Dodgers, who squandered a 7-3 lead after five innings.
Jake Cronenworth’s solo home run in the sixth drew the Padres within 7-4 and San Diego scored three in the seventh on a run-scoring groundout before Fernando Tatis Jr.’s two-run blast off Ryan Brasier tied it.
Manny Machado and Ha-Seong Kim homered as the Padres got back to .500 (8-8) with their third win in four games.
The Dodgers failed to score in the 10th and 11th innings, with Betts flying out to center with the tying run at third in the 11th.
De La Cruz homers again as Reds cruise
Elly De La Cruz hit a three-run homer for his fourth longball in his last four games to back a strong start by Andrew Abbott in the Cincinnati Reds’ 11-1 rout of the Chicago White Sox.
Tyler Stephenson also went deep and Christian Encarnacion-Strand and Santiago Espinal each added two hits and three RBIs for the Reds.
De La Cruz singled in the second inning to reach safely for the 18th straight game dating to last season.
He hit his fourth home run of the season in the third after he had an inside-the-park homer and 450-foot drive during a 10-8 win over Milwaukee on Monday before going deep again in a 7-2 loss to the Brewers on Wednesday.
De La Cruz is 8 for 15 with four home runs, seven RBIs and eight runs in his last four games.
Rangers drop Astros 7 under .500
Jonah Heim homered and had four RBIs and Evan Carter added three hits to help the Texas Rangers to a 12-8 victory that dropped the Houston Astros seven games under .500 for the first time in eight years.
Houston, which has lost four straight and allowed 36 runs in its last three games, fell to 4-11. The Astros are seven below .500 for the first time since they were 22-29 before a Memorial Day win in 2016, a season in which they dropped to 20-29 before a five-game winning streak.
Texas extended its lead to 12-3 with four runs in the sixth, as Adolis Garcia singled home a run before Heim had a run-scoring groundout and Jared Walsh stroked a two-run single.
Kyle Tucker homered twice, and Jake Meyers drove in three runs for the Astros.
MLB: Twins beat White Sox again for 10th straight victory
Max Kepler and Jose Miranda delivered run-scoring singles in the seventh inning and the Twins added four runs in the ninth to win their 10th straight game, 10-5 over the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday.
Alex Kiriloff had a solo home run, Will Castro and Miranda each finished with three hits and Ryan Jeffers contributed a two-run double for the Twins, whose winning streak is their longest since June 2008.
Minnesota has beaten the major league-worst White Sox seven times during the streak, with the other three wins coming against the 11–20 Angels.
Tommy Pham and Kory Lee homered for Chicago, which lost its third straight to fall to 6-25.
Twins center fielder Byron Buxton left in the second inning with right knee soreness after an unsuccessful attempt to steal second base.
Imanaga sharp again as Cubs hold off Mets
Shota Imanaga continued his historic start with seven scoreless innings and the Chicago Cubs completed a perfect relay for the game’s final out to hold off the New York Mets, 1-0.
Imanaga limited the Mets to three singles with one walk and seven strikeouts to improve to 5-0 with a 0.78 ERA in his first six major league starts.
He is the first pitcher since 1901 to go 4-0 with a sub-1.00 ERA and at least 28 strikeouts in his first five starts.
The Mets put runners at second and third with one out in the bottom of the ninth against Hector Neris before Jeff McNeil hit a flyball to medium left field. Ian Happ made the catch and relayed to third baseman Nick Madrigal, who threw home to get Pete Alonso for the final out.
Chicago scored the game’s only run in the fifth, when Matt Mervis led off with a double, moved up on a wild pitch and scored on rookie Pete Crow-Armstrong’s sacrifice fly.
Red-hot Lugo wins again
Seth Lugo pitched seven strong innings for his fifth win and Michael Massey hit a three-run homer to lift the Kansas City Royals to a 6-1 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays.
Lugo allowed just one hit until giving up Danny Jansen’s home run with two outs in the seventh. The right-hander walked two and struck out eight to improve to 5-1 and lower his ERA to 1.60.
Bobby Witt Jr. had two hits, scored once and had an RBI to help the Royals take two of three in the series.
Salvador Perez had an RBI single and extended his career-best streak of reaching base safely to 21 games. He leads the AL with a .355 batting average and 27 RBIs.
Kansas City gave Lugo all the support he needed with a three-run sixth. Kyle Isbel led off with a double, moved up on a sacrifice and scored on Witt’s single. Vinnie Pasquantino then doubled, and Perez’s hit plated Witt before Massey’s groundout made it 3-0.
MLB: Tigers' Flaherty strikes out first 7 batters, fans 14 in doubleheader opener
Jack Flaherty tied an American League record with seven straight strikeouts to open the game and finished with a career-high 14 before the St. Louis Cardinals rallied for a 2-1 win over the Detroit Tigers in a doubleheader opener on Tuesday.
Flaherty’s game-opening seven strikeouts matched the AL record shared by Joe Cowley of the 1986 Chicago White Sox, Carlos Rodon of the 2016 White Sox, Tampa Bay’s Blake Snell in 2018 and Seattle’s Luis Castillo two years ago.
Miami’s Pablo Lopez holds the major league record by striking out the first nine batters of a game in 2021.
Flaherty’s 14 strikeouts were the most by a Tigers pitcher since Max Scherzer had 14 against Pittsburgh on Aug. 14, 2014.
Detroit took a 1-0 lead into the ninth, but Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt and Alec Burleson had one-out singles before Pedro Pages followed with a go-ahead sacrifice fly for his first career RBI.
In the second game, Wenceel Perez homered from both sides of the plate, including a tiebreaking shot in the fifth inning, to lift the Tigers to an 11-6 win.
Streaking Twins beat White Sox
Max Kepler had a tiebreaking sacrifice fly in the ninth inning to lead the Minnesota Twins to their ninth straight victory, 6-5 over the Chicago White Sox.
Minnesota’s win streak is its longest since a 10-game run in June 2008. The Twins also have won seven consecutive games against the White Sox.
After Andrew Benintendi homered in the eighth to tie it at 5, Bryon Buxton led off the ninth with a walk and took third on Manuel Margot’s single. Kepler’s fly to center gave the Twins a 6-5 lead and Jhoan Duran pitched around a leadoff single by Tommy Pham in the bottom of the ninth for the save in his season debut.
Danny Mendick added his first home run of the season for Chicago, which dropped to a major league-worst 6-24.
Caratini, Hader lift Astros to wild win
Victor Caratini hit a pinch-hit, two-run homer with two outs in the 10th inning after Josh Hader pitched two innings for the first time since 2019 in the Houston Astros’ 10-9 win over the Cleveland Guardians.
David Fry’s RBI double in the top of the 10th put the Guardians ahead by one, but Caratini took Hunter Gaddis deep to give the Astros their third straight win.
Hader pitched a scoreless ninth before returning for the 10th. He got more than three outs in a regular-season game for the first time since getting four on Aug. 14, 2020, and had his first two-inning appearance in five years.
Josh Naylor and Estevan Florial hit three-run homers and Andres Gimenez also went deep for Cleveland, which rallied from an 8-3 deficit with a five-run sixth.
Angels’ Mike Trout to undergo knee surgery
Los Angeles Angels center fielder Mike Trout will undergo surgery to repair the torn meniscus in his left knee, the team announced Tuesday.
Trout will be out indefinitely, but the injury is not thought to be season-ending, ESPN reported.
The news is a devastating blow to the Angels, who will be without the three-time AL MVP for at least a couple of months.
Trout underwent an MRI after playing in the Angels’ win over the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday but was initially unaware that he had suffered a significant injury.
“It's crazy, because I look back and I don't even know when I did it,” Trout told reporters on Monday. “I was kind of telling myself, ‘Maybe I just banged it on something and I didn’t realise it.’ And then after the game, getting treatment on it, it was really sore.
“The plan was just to see how I felt in the morning. If I woke up and it was sore, just get it looked at. That was the plan. Last night was tough for me to sleep. It was just aching all night.”
Trout is batting .220 this season and leads the majors with 10 home runs.
This will be the third season in the last four that Trout has missed significant time due to injury. The 11-time All-Star missed the last half of last season with a broken bone in his hand, and a calf injury limited him to 36 games in 2021.
The Angels are reeling as a franchise after losing Shohei Ohtani in free agency to the cross-town rival Dodgers, a major blow to a team that has missed the playoffs in each of the last nine seasons.
Los Angeles entered play Tuesday at 11-18.
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