Rhys Hoskins on Friday hit a two-run homer, while Freddy Peralta pitched five effective innings as the Milwaukee Brewers increased their National League Central lead with a 2-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Hoskins hit his 24th homer of the season off Eduardo Rodriguez (2-3) in the fourth inning and five Milwaukee pitchers shut down the MLB’s highest-scoring offense.
Peralta (11-8) allowed a run on six hits and Devin Williams worked a perfect ninth for his 12th save in 13 opportunities.
Photo: AFP
The Brewers extended their NL Central lead to 10 games after the Chicago Cubs lost 9-5 to the Colorado Rockies.
Arizona were limited to six hits to drop into a tie with the San Diego Padres — who beat the San Francisco Giants 5-0 — for the top NL wild-card spot. The Diamondbacks remained five games behind Los Angeles in the NL West following the Dodgers’ 6-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves.
In Seattle, Julio Rodriguez hit a three-run home run in the eighth inning to help spoil Jacob deGrom’s return to the mound and send the Seattle Mariners to a 5-4 victory over the Texas Rangers.
Photo: AFP
Back after undergoing Tommy John surgery in April last year, DeGrom left after 3-2/3 innings with a 2-0 lead and the Rangers had a 4-0 advantage.
Rodriguez began Seattle’s rally with a double in the seventh that set up two runs. Then in the next inning, he hit his 15th homer of the season to deep left field with two outs off David Robertson (3-4).
“I feel like that’s every player’s dream,” Rodriguez said. “I feel like if you go across leagues and sports, as a player you want to be in the batter’s box in those moments.”
JT Chargois (3-1) struck out three in the eighth for the victory, and Andres Munoz struck out one in the ninth en route to his 21st save.
DeGrom struck out four and gave up four hits in his first game since April last year, showing some of the speed and power that has made him a two-time Cy Young Award winner.
He reached 157kph occasionally, but left before finishing the third with two runners on base when he reached his pitch count.
“The last thing that I’m trying to figure out is my slider,” deGrom said. “You know, it’s not as consistent as it normally is.”
In Detroit, the Tigers came within one out of a combined no-hitter then held on for a 1-0 win over the visiting Baltimore Orioles.
Gunnar Henderson ended the no-hit bid with a triple off Tyler Holton. Kerry Carpenter’s first-inning homer accounted for the game’s lone run.
Beau Brieske and Brant Hurter combined for seven perfect innings before Hurter walked Adley Rutschman on a 3-2 pitch to lead off the eighth.
Elsewhere on Friday, it was:
Angels 3, Astros 5
Blue Jays 4, Cardinals 3 (11i)
Guardians 1, Rays 3
Nationals 4, Marlins 1
Phillies 3, Mets 11
Pirates 3, Royals 8
Twins 4, Reds 8
White Sox 0, Athletics 2
Yankees 5, Red Sox 4
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For