New York: St. Louis’ Randal Grichuk produced a sharp performance turnaround to lead the Cardinals to a 10-2 win at the New York Mets on Tuesday in a clash of National League division leaders.
Grichuk struck out five times in Monday’s game but was a man transformed on Tuesday as he had three extra base hits and drove in three runs. St. Louis eked out their overall lead in the NL to 1-1/2 games ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who suffered a shutout defeat at the hands of San Francisco.
In key inter-league clashes, Washington’s Ryan Zimmerman delivered the dramatic winning homer in the tenth inning to beat the New York Yankees, and Kansas City shut out Cincinnati.
St. Louis manager Mike Matheny elected to load up his batting line-up with right-handers to face New York’s left-handed pitcher Jonathan Niese — leaving Jason Heyward, Matt Carpenter and Matt Adams on the bench — and it paid dividends.
Mark Reynolds homered among his three hits for the Cardinals.
St. Louis starter Michael Wacha (6-0) gave up only one scoring hit in seven innings to join the Mets’ Bartolo Colon and Seattle’s Felix Hernandez for most wins in the majors.
San Francisco notched a fourth straight win by defeating the Dodgers 2-0, cutting the gap at the top of the NL West to 3-1/2 games.
Buster Posey drove in a run for the Giants who have won 11 of their past 14 at home.
San Francisco starter Tim Hudson (2-3) pitched 6 1-3 scoreless innings, his first start without conceding a run since his first outing of the season.
Washington’s Ryan Zimmerman delivered a two-run shot with two outs in the 10th inning to give the Nationals an 8-6 comeback win against the Yankees.
Zimmerman’s fifth homer this season — and 10th game-ending homer of his career — improved the Nationals record in the month of May to 13-4.
His winning hit came off Yankees closer Andrew Miller (0-1) who had not conceded a run all season, converting all his prior 13 save chances.
Kansas City’s pitchers threw the team’s second straight shutout to beat Cincinnati 3-0, making it the first time the Royals had done that since 1992.
Yordano Ventura (3-3), who was 0-3 in his five previous starts, struck out six and walked none.
Reliever Kelvin Herrera gave up a walk in the eighth, but nothing else. Wade Davis worked a spotless ninth, claiming his seventh save in as many opportunities.