CHICAGO — Preston Claiborne gave himself a little pep talk as he stepped to the plate for the first time as a major leaguer.
CHICAGO — Preston Claiborne gave himself a little pep talk as he stepped to the plate for the first time as a major leaguer.
In a tight spot, the reliever laid down a key sacrifice bunt. His teammates took it from there and gave him the win in the process.
Brendan Ryan scored on Jose Veras’ wild pitch before John Ryan Murphy capped a two-run 13th inning with an RBI single, and the New York Yankees beat the Cubs 4-2 Wednesday after Chicago wasted another dominant start by Jeff Samardzija.
New York scored two in the ninth against Hector Rondon to wipe out a 2-0 deficit. Samardzija pitched four-hit ball over seven innings.
Ryan started the winning rally with a leadoff single against Veras (0-1). Yangervis Solarte walked, and the runners moved up on a sacrifice bunt toward third by Claiborne (2-0) in his first career plate appearance.
Ryan came home when Veras threw a pitch over Murphy’s head, and then Murphy drove in Solarte with a single to right to make it 4-2. The Yankees had runners on second and third with two out when Derek Jeter grounded out to end the rally.
“I told myself, ‘Don’t bail on your teammates. Just hang in there and get it down,’” Claiborne said.
Claiborne got the win, pitching 1 2-3 scoreless innings, and David Robertson worked the 13th for his ninth save in nine chances.
He gave up a one-out single to Welington Castillo but retired Nate Schierholtz on a fly and struck out John Baker to end the game after 4 hours, 39 minutes.
Samardzija’s winless streak was stretched to 16 starts even though he lowered his major league-leading ERA from 1.62 to 1.46. If he’s frustrated, if he feels like he’s being wasted, he’s not saying.
Even so, how much longer can he take this?
“I’ve got a lot left,” Samardzija said. “I feel good. You take it with how it goes. It doesn’t always go the right way.”
Samardzija would have liked to stay in longer. But he insisted he was OK with manager Rick Renteria’s decision to go to hand it over to the bullpen and expressed sympathy for Rondon, who came in for the final out in a win previous night.
“I understand how hard it is to do that — to go out every day, especially when you pitched the night before in a long game in bad weather, to come back in a day game,” Samardzija said. “To come back in a day game the next day, it’s tough to do.”
It looked as if his streak was coming to an end after Brian Schlitter worked the eighth. The Cubs took a 2-0 lead into the ninth, but things quickly turned after Rondon came on to start the inning. A throwing error by second baseman Darwin Barney didn’t help.
A leadoff single by Mark Teixeira, walk to Brian McCann and another single to Solarte loaded the bases with none out.
The Yankees tied it when Ichiro Suzuki sent a grounder to shortstop Starlin Castro, who flipped to Barney at second as the first run scored. The relay throw to first sailed wide, and that allowed Ryan, running for McCann, to come home.
INDIANS 11, TIGERS 10
CLEVELAND — Asdrubal Cabrera scored on Al Alburquerque bases-loaded balk in the 13th inning to give the Cleveland Indians an 11-10 victory over the Detroit Tigers.
Alex Avila’s two-out homer in the top of the inning put Detroit ahead, but the Indians scored twice for their second walk-off win in the three-game sweep.
GIANTS 5, ROCKIES 1
DENVER — Hunter Pence hit one of San Francisco’s three solo homers and reliever Yusmeiro Petit threw three sharp innings after starter Matt Cain left with a strained right hamstring.
Pablo Sandoval and Brandon Crawford also connected for the NL West-leading Giants, who won at Coors Field for just the fifth time in 15 games dating back to last season.
Cain didn’t allow a hit through three innings, before giving way to Petit (3-1). He and four other relievers limited the best offensive team in the majors to just five hits.
Jhoulys Chacin (0-3) worked 5 2-3 innings and allowed three runs, including a homer to Pence in the fourth and another to Sandoval two innings later.
CARDS 3, D-BACKS 2 (12)
ST. LOUIS — Arizona shortstop Chris Owings threw wildly to the plate on a bases-loaded grounder in the 12th inning, allowing Matt Holliday to score the winning run in the St. Louis Cardinals’ 3-2 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Cardinals cut down the go-ahead run at the plate in the 10th on Daniel Descalso’s perfect relay throw from down the left field line to nail Ender Inciarte trying to score from first on Paul Goldschmidt’s two-out double.
Holliday walked off Trevor Cahill (1-6) to start the 12th. Matt Adams doubled and Yadier Molina was walked intentionally. Allen Craig hit a grounder and Owings had plenty of time for a force play of the plate but his throw eluded catcher Miguel Montero.
Seth Maness (2-2) allowed a hit in the 12th for the Cardinals, who persevered long after Michael Wacha was chased early by a foul ball lined off his pitching elbow while sitting in the dugout.
Jason Motte worked 1 2-3 scoreless innings in his first appearance since the 2012 postseason. He got help from Holliday, Descalso and Molina on that nifty relay.
Wacha allowed two hits in six scoreless innings and made two outstanding defensive plays before Adams’ liner forced an early exit after 88 pitches. The team said Wacha, the NLCS MVP last fall, had a bruise and was removed for precautionary reasons.
RANGERS 4, MARINERS 3
ARLINGTON, Texas — Nick Tepesch won for the first time in more than 10 months, Shin-Soo Choo hit a tie-breaking home run, and Texas defeated Seattle.
Choo led off the fifth with his homer into the bullpen in left-center. Joakim Soria pitched a perfect inning for his eighth save.
BLUE JAYS 6, RED SOX 4
BOSTON — Edwin Encarnacion had two homers for the second straight game, and Toronto sent the Red Sox to their sixth consecutive loss.
Encarnacion has seven homers in his last six games. He is the first Toronto player to have four multi-homer games in a month, and the first major-leaguer to do so since Troy Tulowitzki in September of 2010.
ROYALS 3, WHITE SOX 1
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Jeremy Guthrie, Wade Davis and Greg Holland combined on a four-hitter and Kansas City rallied in the ninth inning to avoid being swept in a three-game series.
The White Sox had scored 14 runs and hit five home runs in the first two games.
ATHLETICS 3, RAYS 2
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Brandon Moss hit a solo homer for Oakland’s only hit and the Athletics took advantage of the sloppy Rays.
Oakland scored twice on two errors and a pair of walks in the second inning, helping the A’s win for the first time since at least 1914 while getting only one hit, according to the team.
REDS 2, NATIONALS 1
WASHINGTON — Alfredo Simon settled down after a rough start and came back after a 61-minute rain delay to win his sixth game, allowing one run over seven innings Thursday in the Cincinnati Reds’ 2-1 victory over the Washington Nationals.
Simon gave up a leadoff homer to Denard Span in the first, worked out of a jam in the second, then allowed only three more baserunners as the Reds finished a road trip by taking two of three from Washington.
BREWERS 6, BRAVES 1
ATLANTA — Mark Reynolds hit a first-inning grand slam, Kyle Lohse combined with Francisco Rodriguez on a five-hitter and the Brewers ended a four-game losing streak.
Carlos Gomez added a two-run homer in the fourth for Milwaukee.
MARLINS 14, PHILLIES 5
MIAMI — Marcell Ozuna hit a grand slam and drove in five runs to help power Miami.
Christian Yelich, Garrett Jones, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia each drove in two runs for the Marlins, who have the best home record (18-6) in baseball.
Ozuna’s first career grand slam and seventh home run of the season broke the game open in the seventh inning. Miami led 6-3 with two outs before Jeff Manship loaded the bases and Ozuna smacked a pitch over the left-field wall.
DODGERS 4, METS 3
NEW YORK — Adrian Gonzalez homered for the third straight game, Yasiel Puig and Hanley Ramirez hit back-to-back shots for Los Angeles.
Hyun-Jin Ryu (4-2) came off the disabled list and pitched the Dodgers to their 11th victory in 12 meetings with the Mets dating to July 1, 2012. Ramirez drove in two runs and Los Angeles enjoyed most of the vocal support from the 23,721 fans at Citi Field, many of whom turned out to cheer Ryu.