Last Night In Baseball: Yankees, Guardians Go Extra In Division-Leader Clash

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The Yankees and Guardians are both in first place in their respective divisions — New York essentially tied with the Rays in the AL East, Cleveland 1.5 games up on the White Sox in the AL Central — making this week’s series between the two not only a test for each but necessary for sticking at the top. This is doubly true since the Guardians haven’t been great against teams over .500, while the Yankees are not only worse in that regard, but are now without Aaron Judge thanks to injury.

The opening game was a banger, with the Yankees coming out on top, but it took extra innings to get that result. The Yankees tied things up 5-5 in the top of the eighth when DH Paul Goldschmidt — who also opened up the scoring with a homer in the first — grounded into a force out but pushed a run across in the process. The score would stay 5-5 until extras, in no small part thanks to this incredible double play that ended the eighth.

Second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit a ball right between the legs of reliever Cade Smith, but shortstop Brayan Racchio didn’t lose sight of the ball, snagging it right at second and spinning while on the ground to get the first out then throw to first for the second. 

The Yankees would threaten again in the 10th, however, and had a challenge to use at the perfect time: after an intentional walk to first baseman Ben Rice, new DH Max Schuemann, who had entered earlier as a pinch-runner, challenged a high strike call and ended up walking to load the bases with one out.

This was bad news for the obvious reasons, but then there was the fact that left fielder Cody Bellinger was next up. Bellinger has been having an excellent season — he’s hitting .276/.373/.474 — and here drove in two runs with a single to left to put New York up 7-5.

The Guardians would end up trying to answer back in the bottom of the 10th, with right fielder Angel Martínez leading off the inning with a walk to put two on. David Bednar would retire the next two batters, however, and then got Rocchio to ground out to end the game.

The Yankees were able to keep pace with the Rays — they are .003 points behind them in winning percentage, not even enough to be half-a-game back — while the Guardians failed to put some more distance between themselves and the White Sox in the standings. There are two games left in this series for both of those situations to change, however.

The Athletics started a home series in their future home of Las Vegas on Monday, and this probably wasn’t actually a taste of what A’s baseball is going to be about when it settles in for good. And that would be for the best, or else they will never be able to convince a pitcher to join them.

The A’s hosted the Brewers, and the two combined for 34 hits, 11 walks, 82 total bases, and 29 runs. The two teams managed to score 29 runs while still stranding 21 total runners — the entire game was made out of offense, and then it just kept going because it was still tied at the end of nine.

It almost wasn’t, however. The A’s were up 10-8 in the top of the ninth, trying to secure the W, and then first baseman Andrew Vaughn happened. Or happened again, really, since he had a home run back in the third to make it 4-3. Here, Vaughn drilled a 292-foot two-run double to make it 10-10.  

And while the Brewers didn’t score again in regulation, they opened up extra innings with a barrage. Left fielder Jackson Chourio made it 11-10 with a sac fly, then catcher William Contreras, with two runners still on, demolished a ball 463 feet to center to make it 14-10.

The A’s were not deterred: backstop Shea Langeliers hit an RBI single in the bottom of the 10th, then first baseman Nick Kurtz hit his second homer of the day to make it 14-13.

Jonah Heim would come in as a pinch-hitter right after Kurtz’s blast, and tied things up with a back-to-back solo shot.

Somehow, both teams went scoreless in the 11th — exhausted from all of that scoring beforehand, of course — and then the Brewers came up in the 12th with DH Christian Yelich starting on second. He stole third, which set up what ended up being the game-winning play.

Chad Patrick came on in relief to close things out for the Brewers in the bottom of the 12th, and the A’s immediately tried to play for one run in order to tie things up and keep the game going. Shortstop Alika Williams dropped a sac bunt to move Zack Gelof over to third, but that was as close as the Athletics could get. Langeliers struck out swinging, Kurtz was handed an intentional walk and second baseman Jeff McNeil couldn’t get the job done.

Incredibly, all of this still resulted in fewer extra-base hits than the Brewers hit on Sunday — Milwaukee had 10 then. Maybe throw fewer strikes to these guys for a few days, just to be safe.

The Angels took on the Astros in Houston on Monday, and this one had to go to extras to be resolved, as well. The Astros tied things up in the sixth on a double by right fielder Cam Smith, but then shortstop Zach Neto picked up his one hit of the day — a huge one — to give the Angels the lead back, 4-3.

Los Angeles gave up the lead again, however, with first baseman Christian Walker hitting an RBI single to once again tie the game and force it into extra innings.

The Astros would score again in the top of the 10th when center fielder Jake Meyers — who had entered the game much earlier as a pinch-hitter and then stuck around — popped out to second base. That resulted in a play at the plate, but Angels’ backstop Logan O’Hoppe missed the throw from Nick Madrigal and allowed Jose Altuve to score the go-ahead run.

Los Angeles nearly made it even in the bottom of the 10th, but the Angels once again didn’t have any luck on a play at the plate.

With no outs and Mike Trout the starting runner at second, left fielder Jose Siri singled to left, and Trout tried to stretch it into a run. Instead, Brice Matthews made a strong throw and nailed Trout for the first out of the inning. This was bad enough, but it got worse when the game ended on a line out to left — maybe Trout would have scored there, on what would have been the second out of the inning.

There was some good news from the Angels’ game for non-Astros’ fans, though. Trey Mancini returned to the majors for the first time since 2023, with 1,043 days in between big-league games. And he hit an RBI single in his first at-bat back, too.

Mancini, who was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer in 2020, didn’t play in the pros in 2024 despite signing with the Reds, and nearly retired before inking a minor-league deal with the Diamondbacks last season instead. He’s played well at Triple-A in the Angels’ organization this year, and got a shot when a roster spot opened up thanks to Los Angeles putting infielders Vaughn Grissom and Adam Frazier on the IL.

And he went 3-for-4 with a run and an RBI in his big return game, too!

The Mariners defeated the Orioles 6-3 on Monday, and while baseball is a team sport, it’s also one with some huge hits. And Seattle’s first baseman, Josh Naylor, had the biggest hit you can get to win it for the M’s.

Naylor’s fifth-inning grand slam put the Mariners up 5-1, and while the Orioles would cut into the lead a little, it wasn’t enough. Naylor hasn’t actually been hitting for much power this year, as part of the team’s collective early season struggles, but he’s been at a far more respectable .312/.365/.439 with five of his seven homers since April 22, a 39-game stretch: before this, Naylor was batting just .170/.253/.261, and his overall numbers are still digging out of that considerable hole.

Entering play on Monday, the Nationals were 0-29 in games where they were trailing entering the ninth inning, per MLB Stats. Make that 1-29 now, after a three-run effort in the ninth erased the Giants’ lead and gave the dub to Washington.

Keaton Winn took the mound in place of Logan Webb for San Francisco, and while he got outfielder James Wood to strike out to start his outing, DH Luis Garcia Jr. followed with a double. First baseman Curtis Mead was then hit by a pitch, a passed ball moved both runners over and then shortstop CJ Abrams hit a two-run single to tie the game, 3-3.

Abrams would then steal second, and left fielder Daylen Lile sent him home to give the Nationals their first lead since the sixth inning, which the Giants immediately erased in the bottom of the frame. Not this time, though: DH Rafael Devers walked to open the bottom of the ninth, and right fielder Jung Hoo Lee singled him into scoring position, but first baseman Bryce Eldridge ended the threat by striking out swinging.

Cristopher Sánchez might not be threatening to break the all-time scoreless streak anymore, but it turns out he’s still great at that whole pitching thing. With the Phillies taking on the Blue Jays in Toronto, Sanchez went seven innings while allowing four hits, a walk and two runs against 10 strikeouts. The only reason his ERA climbed is because it was already so absurdly low that two runs in seven innings was able to make it go all the way up to 1.54.

Sánchez got some help, too, with right fielder Adolis García bashing his third homer in as many games, a three-run shot 406 feet to left-center off of Patrick Corbin.

That would be enough for Philadelphia to get the win, but the Phillies added another two runs later — final score, 5-2. Toronto is still struggling to find their way back to .500 after a rough start to the year, but the Phillies have managed the feat and are now 36-30, good for second place in the NL East.

The Red Sox cannot hit, which is not news, but Monday served as a reminder of this. Boston went down in order in the first inning, and then were greeted by DH Yandy Díaz on the other side — he immediately extended his on-base streak to 22 games with a leadoff homer on the first pitch he saw.

Now, Boston’s pitching is much better than its offense, and limited Tampa Bay to three runs on the day. The problem is that the lineup scored just the one, so the Rays were able to win 3-1 on the strength of five shutout innings from the bullpen following the departure of starter Ian Seymour.

Tampa Bay remains in first place in the AL East — again, .003 points of winning percentage ahead of New York, a tie for all intents and purposes — and needs to take advantage of this flailing Red Sox team while the Yankees take on the Guardians, in order to widen that gap as much as possible. So far, so good.