Category: Major League Baseball (MLB)

The New York Mets placed first baseman Pete Alonso on the 10-day injured list Friday due to a bone bruise and a sprain of his left wrist.

The club said that Alonso’s injury typically sidelines players for three to four weeks. Alonso and the Mets avoided the worst-case scenario of a wrist fracture that would have kept him out for much longer.

New York recalled versatile infielder Luis Guillorme and left-hander Zach Muckenhirn from Triple-A Syracuse, outrighted catcher Tomas Nido to Triple-A and designated right-hander Stephen Nogosek for assignment.

Alonso injured his wrist Wednesday when he was hit by a fastball from Atlanta Braves right-hander Charlie Morton. X-rays were negative for Alonso, who also had a CT scan Thursday morning before leaving the team and returning to New York for an MRI exam and further testing.

Alonso, 28, has a majors-best 22 home runs and NL-leading 49 RBIs through 62 games while batting .231. The two-time All-Star has 168 homers and 429 RBIs through 592 career games dating to 2019, when he was NL Rookie of the Year.

Guillorme will reportedly leave his Triple-A Syracuse teammates and travel to Pittsburgh to meet the Mets ahead of the struggling team’s opener of a three-game series against the Pirates. New York has lost a season-high six in a row to fall 8 1/2 games behind the first-place Atlanta Braves in the National League East.

Guillorme, 28, is batting .233 with three RBIs and eight runs in 27 games this season with the Mets. He is a career .264 hitter with four homers and 42 RBIs in 307 games with New York.

Muckenhirn, 28, made his major league debut last month and pitched to a 2.45 ERA in two games (3 2/3 innings) out of the Mets’ bullpen.

Nido, 29, was batting a career-low .125 with just one RBI over 22 games for the Mets.

Nogosek, 28, was 0-1 with a 5.61 ERA in 13 games out of the bullpen for New York.

–Field Level Media

All-Star candidate Marcus Stroman hopes to follow a Chicago Cubs loss with a win for the third consecutive time when he and his teammates open a three-game road series Friday night against the San Francisco Giants.

Meeting for the first time this season, the Cubs and Giants both are coming off road-series sweeps, with Chicago having dropped three straight to the Los Angeles Angels while San Francisco won three against the Colorado Rockies.

Stroman (6-4, 2.39 ERA) ended a four-game Cubs skid two starts ago when he threw a one-hit shutout against the Tampa Bay Rays on May 29. The right-hander followed that with six innings, allowing just one unearned run, last Sunday in a 7-1 victory over the San Diego Padres that followed his team’s 6-0 defeat the night before.

The Cubs haven’t won since Stroman’s outing on Sunday, dropping four straight games.

Stroman has seen his ERA fall from 3.24 to 2.39 over his last four starts, all wins, during which he’s given up just three earned runs in 29 innings.

He has faced the Giants four times in his career, going 1-2 with a 3.52 ERA. The 32-year-old is 1-1 with a 2.37 ERA in three starts at Oracle Park after throwing six shutout innings in a 4-2 win at San Francisco last July.

Energized by the eighth-best ERA in the majors, Stroman will have to deal with a Giants team that continued its mastery of the Rockies over the past three days, following a 10-4 win Tuesday with 5-4 and 6-4 come-from-behind efforts on Wednesday and Thursday.

San Francisco has beaten Colorado 11 times in a row.

Pinch hitters were the key to late rallies the past two days. One day after three pinch-hitters in a four-batter span came through with hits in a three-run seventh, Brandon Crawford delivered a game-tying double off the bench in a three-run ninth that produced Thursday’s win.

After having been replaced by a pinch hitter during Wednesday’s key sequence, Crawford found himself in the role a day later. It’s just the way things are these days on a deep team, he said.

“I think it shows that we never give up,” Crawford said after the game.

The Giants haven’t lost since Sunday, the last time right-hander Anthony DeSclafani (4-5, 3.97) took the mound. He has alternated losses and wins in his past three starts, the most recent of which was an 8-3 home loss Sunday to the Orioles in which Baltimore scored six times in the third inning.

The 33-year-old has made 13 career starts against the Cubs, going 5-3 with a 3.84 ERA.

One familiar face DeSclafani won’t see will be Cubs outfielder Cody Bellinger, who was sent to the club’s Arizona complex to continue rehabbing a bruised left knee suffered on May 19. Chicago hopes to have the former Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder back by the end of next week.

“Body feels good,” Cubs manager David Ross reported Thursday about Bellinger. “He got on the bases, felt really good. We’ll try to get him to slide a little bit there — just some little things that are kind of the finishing touches to get him ready.”

–Field Level Media

Shohei Ohtani will be on the mound for the Los Angeles Angels on Friday night against the Seattle Mariners in Anaheim, Calif., coming off his worst start of the season.

Ohtani, a right-hander, gave up five runs and nine hits in six innings against the Houston Astros last Friday, his ERA rising from 2.91 to a season-high 3.30. The nine hits allowed were the most in a game against him all season, and the five runs he surrendered matched a season-worst.

The Angels, who have won four games in a row, use a six-man starting rotation, giving all of the starters an extra day between starts, but it’s geared more toward Ohtani than anyone else considering he’s an everyday player as well.

Ohtani (5-2, 3.30 ERA) has had five days of rest between starts on the mound all season, except for one start when he had three days off following a two-inning, 31-pitch outing. Friday, though, Ohtani will pitch on six days’ rest for the first time, with Angels manager Phil Nevin using Monday’s off-day to push everyone back a day.

“His stuff is still pretty crisp,” Nevin said. “Moreso as I start going through this, we’re looking at [the potential of] over 200 innings for the first time in his career. He’s approaching places he hasn’t been before. So I just felt like it was good to give him an extra day now.”

In his first six starts of the season, Ohtani went 4-0 with a 1.85 ERA; in his past six starts, he’s 1-2 with a 4.62 ERA.

Ohtani has hit for a high average when he starts on the mound, batting .362 (17-for-47). However, he hasn’t hit for power, getting just one of his 16 home runs in games he pitches.

Ohtani has pitched well against Seattle in his career, going 5-0 with a 1.64 ERA in seven starts.

Right-hander Luis Castillo (4-3, 2.55) will make his 13th start of the season for the Mariners. He shut out the Angels on two hits for 5 2/3 innings in his only start against them this year on April 4. Overall, he is 2-0 with a 1.93 ERA in three career starts against the Angels.

Since giving up a season-worst seven runs (five earned) in a loss to the Boston Red Sox on May 16, Castillo has turned things around. In three starts since, he has allowed just one run in 19 innings, striking out 24.

“I feel phenomenal,” Castillo said through an interpreter. “Thank God that I’ve had the help that I’ve had. I’m just going to continue to do what I do best, and that’s hopefully what we continue to see.”

Using his secondary pitches at the right time, particularly his slider, has made a difference, Castillo said.

“They have been working really well for me,” he said. “That’s what secondary pitches are for, to keep batters guessing and confused about what’s coming next.

“The only (other) difference is we’ve been putting more time in with the pitching coach (Pete Woodworth) and my confidence has grown, which is why I’m having the results I do.”

–Field Level Media

The San Diego Padres have not found a safe haven in a disappointing start to their season. They entered the year as one of the National League favorites, but 62 games in, they have a losing record at home and on the road.

The Padres can take comfort in the fact that in the past three full seasons, the champion of the National League had a losing record at some point in June. Still, San Diego wants to turn things around soon, starting on Friday night with the opener of a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies in Denver.

San Diego will send right-hander Yu Darvish (4-4, 4.10 ERA) to the mound to oppose lefty Austin Gomber (4-4, 6.99) in the opener.

The Padres have alternated losses and wins over their past 10 games to remain stuck in fourth place in the NL West.

“There’s 100 games left — that’s a lot of baseball,” San Diego manager Bob Melvin said after his team’s 10-3 win over the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday. “We have plenty of time to get where we want to go. We have to understand that, and our guys do understand that.

“It’s going to be more games like this. We have the ability — offensively, defensively, pitching-wise — to go on a roll.”

It could begin with a solid start from Darvish on Friday night. In 11 career starts against Colorado, he is 3-4 with a 5.37 ERA. Five of those outings came in Denver, where he is 1-1 with a 5.26 ERA.

Darvish is coming off his best outing of the season, as he fired seven shutout innings and struck out nine in a 6-0 win over the Chicago Cubs on Saturday.

The Rockies enter the weekend on the heels of being swept in a three-game series by the visiting San Francisco Giants as part of a four-game losing streak. Colorado squandered a 4-0 lead in a 5-4 loss on Wednesday, then blew a 4-1 edge in a 6-4 defeat Thursday.

Gomber has struggled in eight home starts this season, going 2-2 with an 8.46 ERA. He is coming off his second-shortest outing of the season, lasting just 2 2/3 innings at Kansas City on Saturday, but Colorado rallied to win that game.

Gomber has faced the Padres once this season, when he went six innings and allowed three runs in a 3-1 loss on April 2. He is 2-2 with a 2.41 ERA in 10 career appearances, six starts, against San Diego.

The Rockies could use a solid outing from Gomber to help take some burden off of an overworked bullpen. Dinelson Lamet’s three-inning start on Tuesday night forced manager Bud Black to cycle through five relievers, and the Rockies used three relievers on Wednesday and four on Thursday.

Jake Bird has been the busiest pitcher out of the bullpen, having tossed 41 1/3 innings in 30 appearances. But the 27-year-old right-hander said he isn’t concerned about his usage.

“I think it’s just kind of the same stuff I’ve been doing since college where I really got to learn about what it takes to take care of your body,” Bird said. “Just doing the arm care, the shoulder-strengthening stuff, learning how to take it easy.”

–Field Level Media

South Florida is the center of the sporting universe, with the Miami Heat playing in the NBA Finals, the Florida Panthers participating in the Stanley Cup Final and Lionel Messi agreeing to join Inter Miami.

The Miami Marlins are doing their part to gain attention, too, contending for a division title with a player batting above .400.

The Marlins and Luis Arraez will look to continue their torrid stretches on Friday night when Miami visits the Chicago White Sox in the opener of a three-game interleague series.

Rookie Eury Perez (3-1, 2.25 ERA) is slated to start for the Marlins against Dylan Cease (3-3, 4.63 ERA) in a matchup of right-handers.

The Marlins were off Thursday after extending their winning streak to six games on Wednesday, when they closed out a nine-game homestand by beating the Kansas City Royals 6-1.

The White Sox completed a road trip on Thursday by splitting a doubleheader with the host New York Yankees. Chicago hit four homers while earning a 6-5 win in the opener before getting blanked 3-0 in the nightcap.

The Marlins are one victory shy of matching their longest winning streak in a decade. Miami won seven straight games in April 2016 and April 2022.

This run has vaulted the Marlins into second place in the National League East. Miami, which is celebrating the franchise’s 30th anniversary, has never won the division despite having won World Series titles in 1997 and 2003.

Arraez went hitless in the Marlins’ first win of their current streak, a 4-0 blanking of the Oakland Athletics on June 2. But the 26-year-old second baseman hit .667 (14-for-21) with nine RBIs over the past five games, raising his season average from .374 to .403.

Arraez is the first player with an average over .400 after June 1 since Chipper Jones in 2008.

“We have a guy hitting .400 and a Cy Young Award winner,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said, the latter part a reference to Sandy Alcantara. “We have some good things going on as well. It is an exciting time to be here.”

The White Sox, who are tied for third place in the American League Central, built some momentum during a season-high, five-game winning streak that ended Thursday night.

Chicago’s starting pitchers posted a 1.16 ERA in the first four wins of the streak. The White Sox outscored the Detroit Tigers and the Yankees 20-10 during the run — the team’s longest since winning five straight from Aug. 12-16, 2022 — before being limited to two hits in Thursday’s second game.

“Any time you come into Yankee Stadium and win two out of three, obviously it’s really good,” White Sox manager Pedro Grifol said of the series. “We had a chance to take all three.”

Perez earned a win on Saturday, when he allowed four hits over five scoreless innings as the Marlins beat the visiting Athletics 12-1.

Cease got a no-decision on Saturday after surrendering one run, two hits and three walks over 5 1/3 innings in Chicago’s 2-1, 10-inning win over the visiting Tigers.

Neither starting pitcher has ever faced his Friday opponent.

–Field Level Media

Two months have passed since Jordan Montgomery earned a victory for the St. Louis Cardinals.

The 30-year-old left-hander will try again Friday when the Cardinals open a three-game home series against the Cincinnati Reds.

“I am not (a) loser,” Montgomery told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I’m going to keep giving them everything I’ve got out there. The team knows that. Manager knows it. Pitching coach knows it. Fan base knows it.”

Montgomery (2-7, 4.23 ERA) hasn’t won a game since April 8, when he threw seven shutout innings at Milwaukee.

“Baseball stinks,” he said. “It’s not always easy. It’s not always going to go great. Everybody has to stick with what they do — and try to do it better.”

Montgomery struggled in his previous start against the Reds this season. He allowed four runs on seven hits and three walks in four innings at Cincinnati on May 22. He took a no-decision as the Cardinals lost 6-5 in 10 innings.

He is 1-1 with a 4.50 ERA in three career starts covering 16 innings against the Reds.

In each of Montgomery’s past two starts, St. Louis took a 4-3 loss, at Cleveland on May 28 and at Pittsburgh on Saturday.

The Cardinals are 7-14 in one-run games this season. They have lost seven of their past nine games overall, but they are coming off a 1-0 victory at Texas on Wednesday.

“I think we’ve played some good baseball here recently, and we haven’t come out on the good side of things,” said Cardinals left fielder Alec Burleson, whose eighth-inning homer provided the only scoring in the finale against the Rangers. “But it’ll be good to take that into (Thursday’s off day), rest up and take that momentum into this weekend on both sides of the ball.”

The Reds will give the ball to right-hander Ben Lively (3-3, 3.03 ERA), who will look to rebound from a 5-1 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday. Lively allowed all five runs on six hits, including two homers, in seven innings.

“I was falling behind. I was struggling with my slider pretty much the whole game,” he said.

In his previous three starts, Lively allowed just four runs in 17 1/3 innings (2.08 ERA).

“I probably put a lot of pressure on myself today, for sure, after the first couple of games,” Lively said following the loss to the Brewers. “Just the struggle bus today. Sucks, but we’ll get better through it.”

Lively earned a 10-3 victory over the Cardinals on May 24 in his only career appearance against them. He allowed two runs on five hits over six innings while striking out eight and walking two.

After winning eight of 12 games, the Reds fell 6-0 to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday. Cincinnati starter Graham Ashcraft was hit in the left foot by a comebacker in the third inning, so Fernando Cruz, Alex Young, Eduardo Salazar and Ian Gibault had to cover the last 6 1/3 innings.

The work taxed the relief corps ahead of the Cardinals series.

“Truthfully, with where we were with our bullpen, it was going to be very difficult to get through the game today,” Reds manager David Bell said postgame. “It was just the price we paid for the last two games and having to use our bullpen a lot.”

Reds outfielder Jake Fraley is questionable for Friday due to a right wrist contusion. Cardinals outfielder Dylan Carlson (sprained left ankle) could return this weekend after his rehab assignment with Triple-A Memphis.

–Field Level Media

The Oakland Athletics will continue a nine-game road swing while looking for their season-best third consecutive win on Friday when they visit the Milwaukee Brewers.

Milwaukee welcomes Oakland to town as part of a six-game homestand, which reached the midway point with a 6-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Thursday.

The Brewers took the first two in the series with a 4-3, 10-inning win on Tuesday and a 10-2 rout on Wednesday, but they gave up all six runs in the final three innings on Thursday. Milwaukee went eight innings without scoring after jumping ahead 3-0.

“We didn’t get much going after that,” Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell said. “We just didn’t take many good swings afterward.”

Despite falling short of the sweep, the Brewers saw Joey Weimer extend his hitting streak to nine games on Thursday. Wiemer knocked the game-winning single in the 10th inning on Tuesday and homered twice on Wednesday.

“I’m not going to say (my swing is) completely here,” Weimer, who was hitting .187 before the current streak began, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “You’re always working. You’re always trying to figure out something new and keep going.”

He looks to keep it going Friday against Oakland starter Luis Medina (0-5, 8.19 ERA).

The right-hander lasted just two innings in his last start, giving up six runs in the Athletics’ 12-1 loss at Miami on June 3. Medina’s ERA in three appearances on the road is 11.68.

While Medina has struggled on the road, Oakland continues its ongoing road swing with some positive momentum after taking two in a row from the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The A’s scored a 9-5 win in the series finale on Wednesday as Ryan Noda hit his seventh home run of the season. He produced two hits in each of the last three games, including an 11-2 win at Pittsburgh on Tuesday, and he logged multiple hits in four of his past five outings.

“We’re getting there,” Noda said about Oakland’s hitting, according to the team’s official website. “We’re getting close. I’m just trying to battle and get the next guy up. Trying to start a train.”

The consecutive wins over the Pirates snapped a five-game losing skid for Oakland, which also experienced a 10-game losing streak from May 17-28.

The A’s will try to keep the positive momentum going on Friday when they face Milwaukee right-hander Adrian Houser (2-1, 3.45 ERA).

Houser will be facing Oakland for the first time since July 30, 2019, when he struck out six batters and allowed one run over five innings in a no-decision. That meeting was Houser’s only career matchup with the A’s.

Houser recorded a win in his most recent start, tossing seven innings of one-run ball in the Brewers’ 5-1 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday.

–Field Level Media

Three months ago, 20-year-old right-hander AJ Smith-Shawver was on the roster for the Class-A Rome Braves.

On Friday night, the Atlanta Braves rookie will continue his meteoric rise through the organization when he makes his first major league start, facing the visiting Washington Nationals in the opener of a three-game series.

The Braves have won five straight games after a dramatic 13-10, 10-inning win over the New York Mets on Thursday. The Nationals, who have lost four straight, had their scheduled Thursday home game against the Arizona Diamondbacks postponed because of hazardous air quality caused by Canadian wildfires.

Smith-Shawver (0-0, 0.00 ERA) will be opposed by right-hander Josiah Gray (4-5, 3.09) in the second series between the two clubs this season. The Braves won two of three games at Washington in the opening series of the season.

Smith-Shawver needed just 28 minor league starts to reach the majors. This year, he made three starts for Rome, two for Double-A Mississippi and two for Triple-A Gwinnett, going a combined 2-1 with a 1.09 ERA and 45 strikeouts in 33 innings.

Smith-Shawver made his major league debut on Sunday at Arizona. He pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings out of the bullpen and allowed no hits and one walk while striking out three.

“It’s kind of surreal,” Smith-Shawver said after being called up. “The Braves had a lot of people that helped me develop and really guided me. I didn’t really know exactly what I was doing when I first got into it, and I think the guys around here, around this organization, really gave me the right tools to compete and gave me the opportunity.”

Smith-Shawver was a seventh-round draft choice in 2021 out of Colleyville (Texas) Heritage High School who did not start pitching regularly until the summer of 2020.

Gray will make his 13th start. In his latest appearance, on June 2 against the Philadelphia Phillies, he gave up four runs on six hits — two of them home runs — with two walks and four strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings.

Gray has made five career starts against Atlanta, going 1-2 with a 3.33 ERA. He took a loss against the Braves on April 1 when he surrendered a season-high five runs in five innings during a 7-1 defeat. The right-hander served up three home runs in that contest.

Atlanta is coming off a dramatic three-game sweep of the rival Mets. The Braves came from behind to win each game. They trailed by three runs in the first two games and by four runs in the finale. It was the first time since the team moved to Atlanta in 1966 that it won three straight games when trailing by at least three runs.

Washington’s Joey Meneses has reached base in a career-best 15 straight games and is hitting .362 (21-for-58) during the streak. He has reached safely in 25 of his past 26 games.

The Nationals made a roster move on Thursday, claiming left-hander Joe La Sorsa off waivers from the Tampa Bay Rays and assigning him to Triple-A Rochester. He will be joined there by center fielder Victor Robles, who will begin a rehab assignment after spending time on the injured list with back spasms.

“It’s really been tough for (Robles),” Washington manager Dave Martinez said. “He’s been frustrated because he was hitting the ball really well and playing well.”

–Field Level Media

Houston right-hander Cristian Javier will attempt to record his sixth win in as many starts on Friday when the visiting Astros open a three-game series against the Cleveland Guardians.

Javier (7-1, 2.84 ERA) has allowed just six runs on 19 hits over his past five starts (29 innings). He yielded one run on six hits in six innings during Houston’s 9-6 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday.

The Astros followed that win by losing four of their next five games. They have mustered just five runs during their current three-game skid and saw star Yordan Alvarez aggravate an oblique injury on his final swing in the batting cage before exiting after his lone at-bat in Houston’s 3-2 setback to the host Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday.

The Astros placed Alvarez on the 10-day injured list Friday.

“That’s a tough blow right there,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said following Thursday’s game. “We’ve just got to regroup and see how we’re going to get through this.”

Alvarez, who has a majors-best 55 RBIs, had reached base safely in 19 straight games before bouncing out to first base in the first inning. He was replaced in the lineup by Corey Julks.

Javier, 26, is 1-1 with a 0.63 ERA in four career games (two starts) against Cleveland. He permitted one run on 11 hits and two walks while striking out 17 batters in 14 1/3 innings during those games.

Javier would be wise to pitch carefully to Jose Ramirez, who answered a 3-for-25 slump to begin June by belting three homers in a game for the first time in his career during the Guardians’ 10-3 romp over the Boston Red Sox on Thursday.

“He shows up every day,” teammate Steven Kwan told Bally Sports Cleveland of Ramirez. “He has the ability to literally win a game for the whole team. Three home runs, that (defensive) play at third that prevented a big inning. He’s our superstar for a reason.”

Cleveland’s Josh Naylor is batting a robust .552 (16-for-29) with 11 RBIs and nine runs during his career-high, eight-game hitting streak.

Will Brennan and Andres Gimenez each had two hits and drove in two runs on Thursday for the Guardians. The former is batting .485 (16-for-33) with seven RBIs since May 30, while the latter is hitting .371 (13-for-35) with seven RBIs in the same timeframe.

Rookie left-hander Logan Allen (3-2, 2.76 ERA) will take the mound for Cleveland on Friday.

Allen, 24, has turned in two strong outings to emerge victorious in his past two trips to the mound. He scattered three hits and struck out a season-best 10 batters over seven innings in a 5-0 win at Baltimore on May 29 before allowing two runs in six frames during a 4-2 victory at Minnesota on Saturday.

“He competes like crazy,” Guardians manager Terry Francona said of Allen, who hasn’t permitted more than three earned runs in any of his eight starts this season. “All the things, he’s got poise. If he walks somebody, he reels it right back in. He doesn’t let anything bother him.”

Allen has yet to pitch against the Astros in his young career.

–Field Level Media

The Minnesota Twins will try to end their five-game losing streak Friday night in Toronto when they open a three-game series against the surging Blue Jays.

The Blue Jays have won three in a row — and nine of their past 11 — after a 3-2 victory Thursday night that allowed them to take a four-game series from the visiting Houston Astros.

The Twins lost the finale of a three-game set against the host Tampa Bay Rays 4-2 on Thursday.

“We had our chances,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We had our opportunities. We had some hard-hit balls, especially in the second and third games of the series. None of it amounted to anything. We’re going to stay at it and keep working.”

The Twins were held to three runs in the series against the Rays and dropped one game below .500 for the first time this season.

“We trust the guys we’ve got in this room, and that’s all we can do,” Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers said. “I think as soon as you start to panic, as soon as you start to doubt yourself, doubt the guys around you, that’s when you don’t come out of those trenches. I think we’re in a little lull right here, but we’ll still keep playing baseball, playing hard, and that’s going to change.”

The Twins have had some bad luck. In the first inning Thursday, for example, second baseman Jorge Polanco’s shot deflected off Rays starter Yonny Chirinos, hit second-base umpire Jeff Nelson and ricocheted toward second, where Tampa Bay got the forceout.

Polanco arrived at first base in discomfort. He was removed from the game with what the Twins referred to as hamstring tightness.

The Twins hope to improve their fortunes on Friday when they are scheduled to start right-hander Sonny Gray (4-1, 2.15 ERA). Gray is 4-4 with a 2.99 ERA in 14 career games (13 starts) against Toronto.

The Blue Jays are scheduled to start left-hander Yusei Kikuchi (6-2, 4.40). In four career starts against Minnesota, he is 1-1 with a 3.32 ERA.

The Blue Jays won two of three from the Twins late last month in Minneapolis.

In the three wins against Houston, they had solid starting pitching from Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt and Jose Berrios. They also took advantage of some shoddy play by the Astros on Thursday, both in the field and on the bases.

The good pitching gave the Blue Jays a chance to capitalize on Houston’s mistakes.

“It starts and ends with starting pitching,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “You look at Kev, Chris and Jose tonight — it puts you in a good spot.”

Berrios allowed two runs in six innings Thursday. Over his past 11 starts, he is 6-2 with a 2.53 ERA.

After a poor season in 2022 and a slow start to this season, Berrios is brimming with confidence.

“It’s really high,” Berrios said. “I’ve been able to throw the ball pretty well so far. Having a night like tonight, I didn’t even have a lot of swing and miss or strikeouts, but we still had a lot of ground balls and got the hitters out. I have that confidence to keep pitching, keep competing.”

Toronto center fielder Kevin Kiermaier left the game in the fourth inning after being hit on the left wrist by a pitch in the second inning. X-rays were negative.

–Field Level Media