Yankees ride Chris Young’s three-run homer to victory in Houston
Take a look around the league with Big League Stew’s daily wrap up. We’ll hit on all of the biggest moments from the day that you may have missed, while providing highlights, photos and interesting stats.
The American League East is getting tighter by the day and on any given night can swing a different direction on one swing of the bat.
In Friday’s action, the biggest swing may have belonged to New York Yankees outfielder Chris Young. One pitch after breaking his bat on a foul ball against Will Harris, Young grabbed his new lumber and muscled up for a three-run homer. Those three runs would be all New York mustered against Vincent Velásquez and Houston’s bullpen, but it would be enough to pull off a 3-2 victory.
[Check out Big League Stew on Tumblr for even more baseball awesomeness.]
Young’s blast immediately followed singles from Carlos Beltran and Garrett Jones. He finished the game with three hits, which gives him four multi-hit games in a row.
He’s also a big fan of hitting at Minute Maid Park.
Houston native Nathan Eovaldi picked up the win for New York after tossing six innings of two-run ball. He struck out six. Dellin Betances bounced back from a blown save on Tuesday by retiring all four batters he faced.
With the win and a Tampa Bay Rays loss to Boston, the Yankees moved back to within one-half game of first place. The Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays now sit one game behind headed into Saturday’s action.
CARDINALS INCH CLOSER TO 50 WINS
The most intriguing series of the weekend is taking place down in St. Louis, where the first-place Cardinals are hosting the rival Chicago Cubs. We say intriguing, because everybody wants to know if the quickly improving Cubs can prove to be a real threat to St. Louis in the NL Central.
Verdict after game one: Not quite yet.
In typical Cardinals fashion, they received a quality outing from starter John Lackey and found just enough offense to break the Cubs hearts, winning 3-2 on a walkoff error in the 10th inning. The Cardinals loaded the bases with no outs when Cubs’ skipper Joe Maddon went to the five-man infield. Naturally, Peralta hit a grounder to Mike Baxter, Chicago’s fifth infielder, who threw home wide.
As noted, Lackey was good, tossing seven innings of two-run ball. Jake Arrieta was even better for Chicago, allowing one run over seven. However, Pedro Strop coughed up the slim lead on a pinch-hit home run by Greg Garcia.
The win was St. Louis’ league-best 49th this season. Houston is next in line with 43. The Cardinals are 27-7 at home, which is also the league’s best mark. They own an eight-game division lead over Pittsburgh and are 9 1/2 in front of Chicago.
NOAH SYNDERGAARD PITCHES METS BACK OVER .500
Lack of offense was the New York Mets key issue during their recent seven-game losing streak, which pushed them one game under .500. Now the team’s young starting pitching is looking to take charge and turn things back around.
On Thursday, likely All-Star Jacob deGrom did his part, allowing just four hits and striking out seven in a win against the Milwaukee Brewers. On Friday, rookie Noah Syndergaard got them back to .500, allowing one run on five hits in a 2-1 victory against the Cincinnati Reds.
Syndergaard needed just 89 pitches to complete eight innings. He struck out five and walked none. It was easily the best start of his rookie campaign, and considering the Mets recent struggles it couldn’t have come at a better time. Now they’ll look to build a winning streak with Matt Harvey taking the ball on Saturday afternoon.
[On this week’s StewPod: Looking back at a fun week in baseball with Jeff Passan]
Offensively, the Mets did very little against Johnny Cueto. Curtis Granderson led off the game with a solo home run. They also pieced together a run in the fifth on Dilson Herrera’s triple and three walks. Lucas Duda’s walk drove in the go-ahead run.
Jeurys Familia pitched a perfect ninth for his 21st save.
JAYS LAUNCH FOUR HOMERS IN WIN OVER RANGERS
After eeking out a 1-0 win in 12 innings against the Rays on Wednesday, the Toronto Blue Jays offense wasted no time taking over on Friday. Trailing by an early run on Prince Fielder’s 300th career homer, the Jays answered quickly and emphatically thanks to Edwin Encarnacion’s grand slam, and never looked back on their way to a 12-2 triumph.
Overall, Toronto connected for four home runs. That included a separate solo shot from Encarnacion, as well as solo shots from Russell Martin and Danny Valenica. The latter of which came off Rangers position player Adam Rosales.
The outburst made a winner of Mark Buehrle, who’s now 8-4 on the season. Buehrle has received at least 10 runs of support in five of his 15 outings this season, including a total of 37 over his first three starts.
Want to see more from Friday’s slate of games? Check out our scoreboard.
More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports:
– – – – – – –
Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
