And That Happened: Monday’s scores and highlights

By Jul 3, 2012, 5:47 AM EDT
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Rays 4, Yankees 3: Mark Teixeira committed his first error of the season, which allowed in the go ahead run. Hey, he’s allowed one bad day, right? All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. You had a bad day once, am I right? I know I am. I can tell. You had a bad day and everything changed. Why else would you dress up as a flying rat?

Cubs 4, Braves 1: The Braves case of the Mondays continues. They are 0-11 on Monday games in 2012. This is important. This means something. Or maybe it doesn’t. Last night it was merely a function of Jeff Samardzija striking out 11 Bravos in seven innings and Anthony Rizzo homering again.

Twins 6, Tigers 4: Four straight wins for the Twinkies. This one was Ron Gardenhire’s 900th. If they had won this one the Tigers would have gotten back up to .500, but they can’t seem to get any momentum. Jim Leyland closed the clubhouse after the game. I assume that this was so that he could murder some of the underperforming Tigers as a lesson to the survivors.

Royals 11, Blue Jays 3: Mike Moustakas hit a grand slam and drove in five as Ricky Romero got walloped. Joey Bats hit his league-leading 27th, but the Jays dropped their fifth game in the past seven tries.

Pirates 11, Astros 2: The Pirates stay hot. Garrett Jones had four hits and four RBI including a homer. His was back-to-back with a Neil Walker shot. Both of them hit the foul pole. That apparently hasn’t happened on back-to-back homers since they started keeping track of such things in 2000. I’m sure there’s some old guy someplace who will swear he saw it happen in Forbes Field or something, though.

Angels 3, Indians 0: Jered Weaver threw seven shutout innings. Mike Trout didn’t start due to a jammed pinkie finger, but he did pinch run.

Brewers 6, Marlins 5: The entire Internet spends 24 hours talking about the Zack Greinke snub so Greinke goes out and pitches kinda poorly (6 IP, 6 H, 5 ER). Now today all the La Russa defenders will act like this one game justified the snub. Can’t wait until All-Star season is over. Eh, Greinke probably doesn’t care. Brewers won.

Cardinals 9, Rockies 2:  Josh Outman? More like Josh Walkman, amirite, people? Ahem, sorry.  Anyway, Kyle Lohse pitched well and Allen Craig hit two homers.

Reds 8, Dodgers 2: Scary moment as Zack Cozart was hit in the head with a Chad Billingsley pitch. In these days of, thankfully, much greater awareness of the seriousness of concussions, someone square these two statements from me:

Zack Cozart: “I think it just got away from him. I don’t even really remember, to be honest. I just remember hearing a pretty loud bang, then I had some ringing in my ears, and that’s why I was on the ground holding my ears”; and

Dusty Baker: “”They gave him all the tests and said that Zack should be OK tomorrow. We took him out more for precautionary reasons. He was a little glossy-eyed, so we decided to get him out of there because he got hit pretty good.”

Instead of “he’ll be alright tomorrow, how about putting him on the 7-day DL just to be sure?

Mariners 6, Orioles 3: Six runs for the M’s at Safeco Field is the equivalent of 22 runs for a normal team in a normal park. Seriously. You can look it up.

Padres 6, Diamondbacks 2: Cameron Maybin hit a 485-foot home run. Clayton Richard continues a nice string of starts. Indeed, he is 4-1 with a 1.70 ERA over his last five.

Athletics 6, Red Sox 1: Daisuke Matsuzaka lasted one inning in which he gave up five runs on four hits while walking two. Nope, not what the Sox needed. Josh Reddick and Brandon Moss homered for the A’s and Jarrod Parker pitched well again, allowing one run over six and two-thirds. Kid has a 2.46 ERA on the year.

McCutchen’s sacrifice fly lifts Pirates to 5-4 win, extends Athletics’ road losing streak to 15

Associated PressJun 6, 2023, 12:19 AM EDT
Scott Galvin-USA TODAY Sports
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PITTSBURGH – Andrew McCutchen’s tiebreaking sacrifice fly in the eighth inning lifted Pittsburgh to a 5-4 victory over Oakland on Monday night, extending the Pirates’ win streak to six games and sending the Athletics to their record-tying 15th consecutive road loss.

The 15 straight defeats away from home matches the Athletics’ record since they moved from Kansas City in 1968. Oakland set that mark in 1986.

The major league-worst Athletics (12-50) have lost five games in a row overall. They are on pace to finish the season exactly 100 games under .500 at 31-131.

“It’s tough,” Athletics manager Mark Kotsay said. “Tonight’s game, we didn’t play well enough to win the game. I don’t want to say we gave the game away but there were a lot of instances where we had a chance to capitalize on opportunities and didn’t do it.”

McCutchen also singled and drew three walks to go with two RBIs. The 2013 NL MVP now has 1,998 career hits.

With the score tied at 4, Ji Hwan Bae led off the decisive eighth inning with a single off Sam Moll (0-3) and advanced to third on Austin Hedges’ one-out single. McCutchen’s sac fly plated Bae.

“I was just trying to get the job done. I understand the situation there,” McCutchen said. “We just need to get the run. I was trying to bear down against a hard thrower and trying to get that run in as much as I can, and I was able to do it and have a good at-bat.”

Angel Perdomo (1-0) retired both hitters he faced. and Colin Holdeman pitched a scoreless ninth inning for his first career save. It was an eventful inning for Holderman as the first three batters reached base, but he struck out Carlos Perez with runners on the corners to end it.

“I began my career as a starting pitcher in the minor leagues but ever since I was switched to relief, this has been the goal, to get a save in the big leagues,” Holderman said.

Pittsburgh starter Johan Oviedo gave up three runs and four hits with five strikeouts and two walks.

Oakland left-hander JP Sears did not allow a hit until Mark Mathias’ leadoff single in the fifth but was unable to make it through the inning. Sears was charged with one run in 4 2/3 innings while allowing two hits, walking five and striking out six.

Sears has not allowed more than two runs in five consecutive starts. His nine no-decisions are the most in the major leagues.

Ryan Noda and Brent Rooker had two hits each for the Athletics.

The Athletics tied the score at 4-4 in the eighth inning on pinch-hitter Aledmys Diaz’s run-scoring double. Oakland left the bases loaded, though, when Nick Allen hit an inning-ending flyout.

Consecutive bases-loaded walks keyed a three-run sixth inning that put the Pirates 4-3. McCutchen and Bryan Reynolds each worked bases on balls off Shintaro Fujinami to tie the score at 3-all and pinch-hitter Jack Suwinski followed with a sacrifice fly.

The Athletics opened the scoring in the first inning when rookie Esteury Ruiz reached on catcher’s interference, stole his MLB-leading 30th base of the season and scored on Noda’s single. Seth Brown doubled in a run in the third and came home on Perez’s sacrifice fly to push Oakland’s lead to 3-0.

Connor Joe hit an RBI double for the Pirates in the fifth.

The Pirates drew 10 walks, their most in a game in nearly two years.

“We had a bunch of opportunities that we didn’t capitalize (on), but the thing I think I was most proud of is we got down and we didn’t rush to get back,” Pittsburgh manager Derek Shelton said. “We were still patient.”

TRAINER’S ROOM

Athletics: LHP Kirby Snead (strained shoulder) is expected to pitch in the Arizona Complex League on Tuesday, which will be his first game action since spring training. … RHP Freddy Tarnok (strained shoulder) will throw a bullpen on Tuesday.

TOP PICK PROMOTED

Pirates catching prospect Henry Davis was promoted to Triple-A Indianapolis from Double-A Altoona. In 41 games at Double-A this season, the 23-year-old hit .284 with 10 home runs and seven stolen bases.

“He was performing offensively at a level where we felt like he was more than ready to meet the challenges,” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said. “He improved as an offensive player even since spring training, focusing on the things we were challenging him on. Defensively, he’s made strides too.”

Davis was the first overall selection in the 2021 amateur draft from the University of Louisville.

UP NEXT

Athletics RHP James Kaprielian (0-6, 8.12 ERA) will make his first start in June after taking the loss in all four starts in May and face RHP Mitch Keller (7-1, 3.25). Keller has eight or more strikeouts in seven consecutive starts, the longest streak by a Pirates pitcher in the modern era (since 1901).