Phillies 5, Giants 4 • Maikel Franco drove in the winning run in the bottom of the 12th for Philadelphia. To them, Wednesday’s comeback was a testament to the team’s collective resolve. Jackson also had an RBI double, stole the first base of his career and scored a run.
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Koehler endured a rough stretch during which he posted a 7.36 ERA over a five-start winless streak, but has turned things around in his past two outings. “We did it a lot last year, but not a lot this year”.
San Diego’s Edwin Jackson pitched seven scoreless innings and had an RBI double as the Padres cruised past Milwaukee 12-3.
“They had so much energy”, Maddon said.
“In the dugout we were saying, ‘Get it to the next guy”.
Miguel Montero led off with a double to right and went to third on Javier Baez’s single.
That’s when, with first base open, Mattingly had Ramos walk Rizzo.
But Chicago managed to slowly fill the bases, and after giving up a sac-fly to Dexter Fowler, the Marlins soon found themselves in an uneasy 4-3 lead with the bases fulls.
And so it was exactly in that manner that the Cubs won the game, with the bases loaded and Willson Contreras at the plate. “But I had to do that, and my job was to get Zobrist out right there, and I just couldn’t execute”. “I was trying to go for the strikeout or get some weak contact”.
“It’s August and we know we only have a sprint left instead of a marathon to get to the playoffs, and we want to keep plugging away”. I just care about us winning a ballgame and whatever it takes.
Zobrist’s teammates credited him for resisting the temptation to go out of the zone for a walk-off hit.
“With Zobrist, he’s not going to swing (just) to swing”, Montero said.
In the seventh inning, Jeff Mathis homered to left, (and yes you are reading that correctly), which scored Derek Dietrich, and gave Miami the 3-1 advantage.
Yankees 9, Mets 5 • Mark Teixeira hit a tiebreaking, three-run drive off Steven Matz in the second, then got hit by a pitch that sparked a bench-clearing dustup in the Yankees’ home win. Tom Koehler tossed six strong innings to help the Marlins take a 4-1 lead heading into the bottom of the eighth.
Manager Joe Maddon’s move to give his starting rotation an extra day off has paid off as Chicago Cubs starting pitchers have worked 15 straight scoreless innings in the past two games.
But the Cubs (66-41) have been accustomed to winning games comfortably, as evidenced by their major league-leading plus-171 run differential.
Koehler departed after six innings, allowing one run on five hits.
Cubs starter John Lackey allowed seven hits and three runs in seven innings while striking out eight.
“Fair expectations?” Lackey said incredulously.
“I came here to win a World Series”, Lackey said. “I came here for the jewelry”.
Yelich, who was 3 for 4, has hit safely in all 12 career games he has played at Wrigley Field. They are 25 games over.500 for the first time since June 21.
Marlins: 1B Justin Bour, out since July 3 with a right ankle sprain, is expected to return Friday at Colorado. The Cubs placed RHP Jason Hammel on the bereavement list Wednesday and recalled RHP Justin Grimm from Triple-A Iowa.
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The Chicago White Sox might have been dangling left-hander Chris Sale (14-4, 3.17 ERA) or Jose Quintana (8-8, 2.89 ERA), but not necessarily to the crosstown Cubs without a hefty premium attached.
