And That Happened: Wednesday's scores and highlights - MLB

Marlins 1, Mets 0: A three-game sweep and an 8-1 homestand for Miami. Three of the Marlins past four games have been walkoff wins, including this one, which was won on a walkoff sac fly. Tom Kohler and Steve Cishek combined for a two-hit shutout.

Indians 4, Twins 3: Mike Aviles with a walkoff single. The Twins carry a eight-man bullpen and Joe Mauer is hurt, but not on the DL. That means they have 11 position players available, which means that shortstop Eduardo Escobar played left field. The Indians’ ninth inning rally kicked off when Escobar got turned around on a fly ball and it ended up landing on the track for a double. Maybe — and this is just a suggestion — teams don’t need eight-man bullpens.

Pirates 4, Giants 3: Pittsburgh takes two of three as Gerrit Cole pitches a nice game. Overall the Pirates have won 4 of 6 following a bad slide before that. Meanwhile, the Giants’ hot run has been cooled off a bit. If this is where their season turns south, let’s all claim it was because of that walkoff reply from Tuesday night. We can call it “The Curse of Technology” or something.

Mariners 6, Athletics 4; Athletics 2, Mariners 0: Felix Hernandez was no great shakes in the opener, but the M’s won. Erasmo Ramirez was pretty good in the nightcap but the M’s lost. Jim Johnson saved that one. While his Tuesday performance was pretty gross — two hits, two walks and four unearned runs — Johnson hasn’t allowed an earned run since April 9.

Nationals 3, Dodgers 2: A shaky first inning for Stephen Strasburg but after that he cruised, pitching into the eighth inning and allowing only those two first inning runs. That’s sort of been his m.o. this year, but that pattern — shaky at first then settling in and going deep into the game — is probably preferable to the old Strasburg who would kick everyone’s butt but be gone by the sixth, either because he was gassed or because everyone was babying him.

Blue Jays 10, Phillies 0: A swell pitchers’ duel until the Jays put up a nine-spot in the seventh. Mark Buehrle cruised, winning his sixth game and setting a pace that had this one over in less than two and a half hours. Cliff Lee summed it up best afterward: “They flat out beat us in every way. Shut us out and scored 10 runs. That’s a pretty good beating right there.” Yup. Jays have won four straight.

Diamondbacks 3, Brewers 2: Signs of life for Arizona, as the Snakes have won five of seven. Bronson Arroyo has turned it around personally too, notching his third straight solid start after a horrific April.

Red Sox 4, Reds 3: The Sox climb back to .500 with a sweep of the Reds. The Reds have lost 11 one-run games this year, which is the sort of thing that has to just gnaw at a team.

Royals 8, Padres 0: James Shields wasn’t terribly sharp, but he did manage seven shutout innings all the same. Eric Hosmer drove in four. Andrew Cashner was beat around. After the game he said “we’re kinda in a team-wide funk.” Which would be cool if he meant, like, a Bootsy Collins funk, but that’s not what he means.

Orioles 4, Rays 3: Two homers for Adam Jones and a two-run homer for Jonathan Schoop to break a 2-2- tie.

Cardinals 7, Braves 1: Adam Wainwright shut ’em down and Mike Minor looked awful yet again. The Braves’ offense looked worse. Of course they’ve had a ton of practice looking terrible. Wainwright had two hits and scored twice too and is hitting .400 on the season.

Tigers 3, Astros 2: Miguel Cabrera and the Tigers continue their hot streaks. Cabrera and Victor Martinez homered and the Tigers won their eighth in a row.

White Sox 8, Cubs 3: Gordon Beckham homered for the second straight game, Jose Abreu had two doubles and Paul Konerko shook off the rust and hit a three-run double. Four wins in a row for the Chisox.

Rockies 9, Rangers 2: Nolan Arenado extends his hitting streak to 27 games, tying the Rockies’ all-time mark. Three straight easy wins for the Rockies over the listless looking Rangers.

Yankees 9, Angels 2: Derek Jeter with his first homer of the year. People have been suggesting that maybe he needs a break or something, but he’s had slow starts like this in the past and came around to be perfectly Jeterian for the rest of the year. While, sure, he’s more likely to break down at 40 than he was at 30, there’s no reason to think he can’t be his old self at the plate for long stretches this season.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The first thing that Kansas City Royals owner John Sherman thinks about when he wakes up each morning is how the club, stuck in what seems like an interminable rebuild, will play on that particular day.

Not where they will play four or five years down the road.

Yet given the modest expectations for a team that lost nearly 100 games a year ago, it makes sense many Royals fans are just as interested – quite possibly more so – in the plans for a downtown ballpark than whether infielder Bobby Witt Jr. can double down on his brilliant rookie season or pitcher Brady Singer can truly become a staff ace.

That’s why Sherman’s second thought probably moves to the downtown ballpark, too.

“This is a huge decision, and I look at it as maybe the most important decision we’ll make as long as we have the privilege of stewarding this team,” Sherman said before the Royals held a final workout Wednesday ahead of opening day. “I’m probably as anxious as you to get moving on that, but it’s a complicated process.”

The Royals have called Kauffman Stadium home since the sister to Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, opened 50 years ago next month.

And while most stadiums are replaced because they have become outdated, the unique, space-aged look of Kauffman Stadium – built during an era in which teams trended toward impersonal, multisport concrete donuts for their homes – remains beloved by Royals fans and visitors alike.

The problem is that despite numerous renovations over the years, the very concrete holding the ballpark together has begun to crumble in places. The cost simply to repair and maintain the ballpark has become prohibitive.

So with the decision essentially made for them to build an entirely new stadium, the Royals revealed plans to build an entire development in the same mold of The Battery Atlanta, where the Braves built Truist Park, and the Ballpark Village in St. Louis, where the new Busch Stadium is merely the centerpiece of a whole entertainment district.

No site has been secured, but several of the most promising are in downtown Kansas City, where the Power & Light District along with T-Mobile Center have spearheaded a successful era of urban renewal.

Sherman has said that private funds would cover the majority of the stadium cost and the entire village, each carrying a price tag of about $1 billion.

But if any public funding will be used, as it was to build and maintain Kauffman Stadium, then it would need to be voted upon, and the earliest that it could show up on a ballot would be August.

“You look at Atlanta, they took some raw ground – they started with 85 acres – and that has been a complete home run,” said Sherman, who purchased the Royals in August 2019, shortly before the pandemic wreaked havoc on team finances.

“This is one of the reasons we want to do this: That’s helped the Braves become more competitive,” Sherman said of the vast potential for increased revenue for one of the smallest-market teams in baseball. “They have locked up and extended the core of their future, and the Braves are in a great position from a baseball standpoint.”

So perhaps the first two thoughts Sherman has each day – about performance and the future – are one and the same.

When it comes to the team itself, the Royals were largely quiet throughout the winter, though that was by design.

Rather than spending heavily on free agents that might help them win a few more games, they decided to stay the course with a promising young roster in the hopes that the development of those players would yield better results.

In fact, Sherman said, the club has been discussing extensions for some of the Royals’ foundational pieces – presumably Witt, who was fourth in voting for AL rookie of the year, and Singer, who was 10-5 with a 3.23 ERA last season.

“We’re having conversations about that as we speak,” Sherman said. “We have a number of young players that we’re trying to evaluate and we’re talking to their representatives about what might work.”

Just because the Royals’ roster largely looks the same, that doesn’t mean nothing has changed. The Royals fired longtime general manager Dayton Moore in September and moved J.J. Picollo to the role, then fired manager Mike Matheny in October and replaced him with longtime Indians and Rays coach Matt Quatraro.

Sherman said the new voices created a palpable energy in spring training that he hopes carries into the regular season.

“When we acquired the team, we had three primary objectives,” Sherman said. “One was to win more games; we’re working on that. The second was to secure the future; that’s what (the stadium) is. And the third was to do good in the community.

“But the first priority,” he said, “is really the on-field product. That’s what really lifts everything else up.”

And That Happened: Wednesday’s scores and highlights

Royals’ John Sherman optimistic about new ballpark, current team