CHICAGO (AP) — Paul Goldschmidt, Paul DeJong, and Tommy Edman homered in the fifth inning and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Chicago Cubs 6-0 on Saturday night. Kwang Hyun Kim struck out seven in six scoreless innings to lead the Cardinals to their third victory in seven games. Javier Báez had two hits for the Cubs, who lost for the 13th time in 15 games. The Cardinals homered off three pitchers in their five-run fifth inning.
Elsewhere in the MLB:
— Atlanta’s 5-4 win over the Miami Marlins was a costly one. Braves star Ronald Acuña (ah-KOON’-yah) Jr. is done for the season after suffering a complete ACL tear in his right knee. Acuña landed awkwardly on his right leg after jumping on the warning track in right field to try to catch a drive from Jazz Chisholm Jr. in the fifth inning. He slammed into the outfield wall and crumbled on the warning track, immediately grabbing toward his right knee while Chisholm sprinted out an inside-the-park homer. He was carted off the field and will undergo surgery. Acuña had been slated to start in the outfield for the NL All-Star team in Tuesday’s game, his third appearance.
— Justin Turner and Mookie Betts hit grand slams, Albert Pujols and AJ Pollock each homered twice and the Los Angeles Dodgers matched a franchise record by connecting eight times in all, routing the Arizona Diamondbacks 22-1 on Saturday night. Cody Bellinger and Zach McKinstry also homered as the Dodgers matched a Los Angeles mark for runs, last scoring 22 in 2001 at Colorado. It was their highest-scoring game ever at Dodger Stadium, which opened in 1962. The Dodgers won for just the second time in their last six games. They scored in just four different innings but broke loose in a big way: five runs in the first, four more in the second, seven runs in the seventh, and six in the eighth. The 22 runs marked the most allowed in a game by the Diamondbacks.
— German Marquez pitched seven dominant innings, limiting the Padres to three hits and leading the Colorado Rockies over San Diego 3-0. Colorado is a major league-worst 8-34 on the road. The Rockies are 2-3 on their current swing, the first time they’ve won more than one game on a trip this season. The Rockies had lost nine in a row at Petco Park before Marquez took over.
— Chris Flexen pitched three-hit ball for seven innings in another home win, Luis Torrens added an RBI triple and the Seattle Mariners beat the Los Angeles Angels 2-0. David Fletchers of the Angels extended his hitting streak to 23 games. Flexen, signed out of the Korea Baseball Organization following last season, struck out six. He improved to 6-2 in 10 starts at home as the Mariners won their third straight game. Drew Steckenrider struck out the side in the eighth and Paul Sewald got Shohei Ohtani to strike out swinging on the way to his second save and a combined three-hitter.
— Yankees ace Gerrit Cole struck out Yordan Alvarez with a 99 mph fastball on his career-high 129th pitch to cap the New York Yankees’ 1-0 win over the Houston Astros. Aaron Judge hit a solo homer and Cole did the rest, completing a three-hitter for his fifth career complete game and third shutout. The AL West-leading Astros, who entered this series having been shut out just once all season, were blanked for a second straight game after losing 4-0 in the opener on Friday night.
— Jed Lowrie hit a tiebreaking RBI single in the 11th inning after an earlier home run and the Oakland Athletics went on to beat the Texas Rangers 8-4. Lowrie hit a sharp single to right with one out in the 11th before a wild pitch by Spencer Patton allowed another run and Stephen Piscotty hit a two-run homer. Both both teams scored a run in the 10th. Oakland won for only the third time in its last nine games. J.B. Wendelken, the sixth Oakland pitcher, worked both extra innings. There were five solo homers before the game went to extra innings, with both teams having back-to-back shots.
— Jean Segura and Alec Bohm homered, and the Philadelphia Phillies snapped Boston’s nine-game home winning streak with an 11-2 victory over the Red Sox. Segura opened the game with a drive over the Green Monster, and Bohm made it 3-0 with a two-run drive off Martín Pérez in the second. The Phillies then broke it open with eight runs in the eighth, earning their fourth win in six games. Xander Bogaerts (ZAN’-dur BOH’-gahrtz) hit a solo homer for Boston, which lost for just the fourth time in 15 games.
— Pete Alonso homered, Jeff McNeil drove in two runs and the New York Mets beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-2 for a doubleheader split. Alonso gave the Mets a 3-1 lead when he connected on a 1-1 fastball from Max Kranick with two outs in the third inning. Alonso’s 428-foot solo drive hit a glass window on a club area just inside the left-field foul pole. The Pirates won the opener 6-2 behind five innings and a tiebreaking homer by Tyler Anderson off Marcus Stroman.
— César Hernández and Óscar Mercado each hit a three-run homer, and the Cleveland Indians beat the struggling Kansas City Royals 14-6. José Ramírez and Roberto Pérez also homered for Cleveland, which has won the first three games in the series after losing nine in a row. All-Star catcher Salvador Pérez hit a two-run homer for Kansas City, which has lost 15 of 18. Cal Quantrill allowed three runs in six innings for the win.
— Eugenio Suárez hit a leadoff home run in the ninth inning against All-Star closer Josh Hader and the Cincinnati Reds beat the Milwaukee Brewers 4-3 in a game that included three ejections. Suárez hit a 2-0 pitch from Hader into the second deck of the right-field bleachers for his 18th homer. Heath Hembree took care of Milwaukee in the bottom half for his second consecutive save and sixth overall, helping the Reds pull within five games of the NL Central-leading Brewers. Milwaukee star Christian Yelich and manager Craig Counsell were ejected, as was Reds star Joey Votto.
— Brandon Lowe homered twice and Mike Zunino also connected, helping the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-2 for their sixth consecutive win. Ryan Yarbrough pitched five innings of two-run ball, improving to 5-0 in his last 12 appearances. The left-hander is 8-1 in 16 appearances against Toronto. Marcus Semien hit his 22nd homer for the Blue Jays, who have lost four of five.
— All-Star Brandon Crawford had three hits, including his 18th home run, and the San Francisco Giants thumped the Washington Nationals 10-4. Anthony DeSclafani had six strikeouts and pitched three-hit ball over six scoreless innings to win his 10th for the Giants. Thairo Estrada added four hits and two RBIs. Darin Ruf doubled and scored twice. Named to his third All-Star team last week, Crawford had a sacrifice fly in the first inning, singled in a run as part of San Francisco’s five-run third, doubled in the fourth, and homered off Kyle McGowin in the sixth.
— Jorge Polanco hit a go-ahead three-run homer in the seventh inning and the Minnesota Twins rallied from a four-run deficit to beat the Detroit Tigers 9-4. Alex Kirilloff also homered for Minnesota to put the Twins on the board in the sixth. Luis Arraez drove in two insurance runs with an eighth-inning single. After Andrelton Simmons snapped an 0-for-19 slump with a base hit and Arraez followed with a single, Polanco took reliever Joe Jimenez deep to right to give Minnesota a 5-4 lead.
— Brian Goodwin had four hits, including a solo homer, and drove in three runs as the Chicago White Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles 8-3 for their fourth straight win. Chicago has won nine of its last 12 and has taken seven in a row from the Orioles dating to 2019, its longest streak against Baltimore since winning eight straight in 1989-90.
