ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Adolis García homered leading off the bottom of the ninth inning after striking out his first four times up, lifting the struggling Texas Rangers to a 6-5 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Sunday.
García drove in his 100th run of the season on his 34th homer, a 430-foot drive into the second deck in left field.
The 30-year-old Cuban slugger dropped his head and looked at home plate without watching the flight of the ball, knowing it was gone. After a pause of several seconds, García started a slow jog toward first base, tugging hard at his jersey as he turned toward his teammates in the dugout.
Mitch Garver was on deck when García connected, having twice given the Rangers the lead with homers among his four hits and four RBIs.
Texas ended up squandering three leads before finally winning for just the fourth time in 16 games. The Rangers pulled within a game of Seattle, which leads the AL West after Texas spent 140 consecutive days atop the division.
BLUE JAYS 7, ROCKIES 5
DENVER (AP) — Whit Merrifield hit a two-out, go-ahead RBI single in the ninth inning and the Toronto Blue Jays went on to beat the Colorado Rockies 7-5 on Sunday to take two of three in the weekend series.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. homered and singled to drive in a pair of runs and Spencer Horwitz, a late fill-in for ailing Brandon Belt, added three hits, including his first career home run to help Toronto remain 1 1/2 games behind Texas for the third American League wild-card playoff berth.
Rookie Hunter Goodman doubled twice and drove in three runs for Colorado in a game that was interrupted by a 59-minute rain delay.
Santiago Espinal opened the ninth with a single off Justin Lawrence (4-7) and was replaced by pinch runner Mason McCoy. Horwitz drew a two-out walk and Merrifield followed with a line single to right. Ernie Clement followed with another run-scoring single.
Chad Green (1-0) worked a scoreless inning for the win and Jordan Romano got three outs for his 32nd save.
METS 6, MARINERS 3
NEW YORK (AP) — Pete Alonso homered twice and drove in four runs, reaching 40 homers and 100 RBIs for the second consecutive season as the New York Mets beat the first-place Seattle Mariners 6-3 on Sunday.
Jeff McNeil also went deep — after finishing a homer shy of the cycle Saturday night — and New York took two of three games from the Mariners to hand them their first series loss since Aug. 11-13 against Baltimore.
Seattle began the day leading the AL West by one game over Houston and two over Texas.
Alonso hit an RBI single in the first inning before his two-run shot in the third made him the fifth player in major league history with at least three 40-homer seasons in his first five campaigns, joining Hall of Famers Ralph Kiner and Eddie Matthews as well as Ryan Howard and Albert Pujols.
Alonso’s solo homer in the seventh gave him 100 RBIs for the third time. His 41 home runs are tied for the second-most in a season in franchise history with Todd Hundley and Carlos Beltran. Alonso holds the team record with 53 as a rookie in 2019.
Francisco Álvarez had an RBI single for the fourth-place Mets (63-74), and touted rookie Ronny Mauricio went 1 for 4 with a single in his third big league game. Mauricio was the seventh player in team history to begin his career with consecutive multi-hit games.
RAYS 6, GUARDIANS 2
CLEVELAND (AP) — Taylor Walls drove in the go-ahead run with a single in the eighth inning as the Tampa Bay Rays salvaged the series finale with a 6-2 win Sunday over the Cleveland Guardians, who missed a chance to gain ground on Minnesota in the AL Central.
Walls lined a single to right off Trevor Stephan (6-5) to bring home Jose Siri, who slid headfirst and safely around rookie catcher Bo Naylor's attempted sweep tag. Siri had walked with two outs and stole second to set the table for Walls.
René Pinto hit a two-run homer for the Rays, who added three more runs in the ninth off Cleveland reliever Eli Morgan.
The Guardians got only five hits and stayed five games behind the first-place Twins with the season growing short. Minnesota, which lost 6-5 at Texas, opens a critical three-game series at Progressive Field starting Monday.
Tampa Bay reliever Colin Poche (10-3) got the win, and Pete Fairbanks snuffed a ninth-inning Cleveland threat by getting two outs for his 19th save.
RED SOX 7, ROYALS 3
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) Masataka Yoshida hit a three-run homer and Adam Duvall had a solo shot to back Chris Sale as the Boston Red Sox beat the Kansas City Royals 7-3 on Sunday.
Sale (6-3) didn’t allow a run over five innings, gave up two hits and struck out five while walking two. It was the first time he hasn’t allowed a run in a start since July 12 of last season.
The Red Sox have won two straight after losing five in a row and six of seven. They are 5 1/2 games behind Texas for the final AL wild card.
Yoshida’s three-run homer went 415 feet to right field, scoring Justin Turner and Triston Casas in the fourth inning. It was his 14th homer on the year. Duvall added a home run in the sixth inning for his 19th of the season and gave Boston a 4-0 lead.
Boston added two runs in the seventh including an RBI from Turner which came off of Austin Cox. Rafael Devers hit an RBI double in the ninth.
Salvador Perez hit an RBI single scoring Bobby Witt Jr. in the sixth and Dairon Blanco hit a two run single in the ninth off of Kenley Jansen.
YANKEES 6, ASTROS 1
HOUSTON (AP) — Prized rookie Jasson Domínguez hit a go-ahead two-run homer in the sixth inning to help the New York Yankees to a 6-1 win over the Houston Astros that completed a three-game sweep Sunday night.
It was the second home run in three career games for the 20-year-old Domínguez, who became the youngest Yankees player to go deep in his major league debut Friday night when he hit a two-run shot off Justin Verlander in his first at-bat.
Houston’s weekend slide came after a five-game winning streak and it left the Astros a game behind the first-place Mariners and tied for second with the Texas Rangers in a tight AL West race.
For the last-place Yankees, this series was a bright spot in a dismal season. It was their first sweep since taking three games from Kansas City from July 21-23 and the first time they’ve swept the Astros since September 2013.
Gleyber Torres added a solo homer in the ninth to push the lead to 4-1 in his return after missing two games with lower back tightness. New York rookie Austin Wells had an RBI double in a three-run ninth for his first career extra-base hit.
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