KANSAS CITY – Marcus Semien homered, tripled and drove in a career-high seven runs as the Oakland Athletics set season highs for runs and hits in a 19-4 thrashing of the Kansas City Royals on Monday night.
Jurickson Profar, Matt Chapman and Khris Davis also went deep for the Athletics, who are locked in a tight race with Cleveland and Tampa Bay for the two American League wild cards. Josh Phegley drove in three runs and scored three times. Four players had three hits and every starter got at least one as Oakland finished with 22.
Seth Brown singled in the first two at-bats of his big league career, scored twice and drove in a run.
Homer Bailey (12-8) threw six innings, allowing three runs and eight hits, to get the win against his former team.
The Athletics scored five runs in both the second and third, backed by Semien’s big hits.
Royals starter Brad Keller (7-14) lasted just 1 1/3 innings, exiting after Semien’s bases-loaded triple put Oakland up 5-0. After retiring his first four hitters, Keller let six straight reach — including three consecutive walks that forced in two runs prior to Semien’s triple.
Brett Phillips curled his first home run of the season, a two-run shot, inside the right field foul pole in the bottom of the inning.
Semien punctuated the five-run third with a two-out, three-run homer. And the visitors kept right on scoring. Matt Olson ripped a two-run double in the fifth and Profar added a solo shot in the sixth to make it 15-3. Oakland scored in every inning except the first.
Kansas City outfielder Alex Gordon made his first career appearance on the mound, throwing 1 1/3 innings giving up three runs on five hits. Gordon walked off to a standing ovation from Royals fans.
Royals infielder Humberto Arteaga pitched the final 1 2/3 innings and allowed just a solo home run to Davis in the ninth.
Phillies 6, Pirates 5 (11)
In Philadelphia, Sean Rodriguez led off the bottom of the 11th inning with a home run to give the Phillies a victory over Pittsburgh.
Rodriguez stroked a 1-2 slider from Michael Feliz (2-4) down the left-field line for his fourth homer of the season. Philadelphia moved to within one game of the second National League wild-card spot, currently held by the idle Chicago Cubs.
Brad Miller, Bryce Harper and Corey Dickerson also clubbed homers, and J.T. Realmuto had three hits for Philadelphia. Mike Morin (1-0) tossed two innings of two-hit relief.
Pittsburgh’s Kevin Newman went 2-for-6 and drove in two runs for a 4-2 lead in the seventh, and Bryan Reynolds, Melky Cabrera, Colin Moran and Adam Frazier each notched two hits. Josh Bell hit a game-tying solo homer in the ninth inning.
Rockies 3, Braves 1
In Denver, Ryan McMahon hit a walk-off, two-run homer in the ninth inning as Colorado topped Atlanta.
The contest was a makeup of an April 10 game that was postponed due to a blizzard that hit the Denver area.
Trevor Story had three hits, and Jairo Diaz (5-3) got the win despite allowing the tying run in the ninth inning for the Rockies, who snapped a four-game losing streak.
Cardinals 12, Brewers 2
In Milwaukee, Yadier Molina, Marcell Ozuna and Paul DeJong drove in three runs each to propel St. Louis past the Brewers.
The Cardinals won their fifth straight game and their 14th game in their past 17 tries. They extended their National League Central lead to three games over the idle Chicago Cubs and 5 1/2 games over the third-place Brewers.
Yankees 5, Mariners 4
In Seattle, rookie Mike Ford homered in consecutive at-bats in New York’s triumph over the Mariners.A night after homering off Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw, Ford capped a four-run second inning with a two-run homer, and he connected again in the fourth against Tommy Milone (3-8).
Ford became the 23rd different player to produce a multi-homer game for New York this year. Gleyber Torres also went deep as the Yankees also extended their major league record for homers in a month to 64. New York improved to 3-4 on a nine-game West Coast road trip.
In Other Games
Padres 4, Dodgers 3
Diamondbacks 6, Giants 4
Reds 6, Marlins 3
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Source : Baseball – The Japan Times