SCOREBOARD
Sunday, April 22
New York at Boston (8:05 p.m. EDT). Yankees’ rookie Chase Wright faces Boston’s Daisuke Matsuzaka.
STARS
Friday
-Tim Hudson, Braves, didn’t allow a run over eight innings and lowered his ERA to 0.62 in a 7-3 win over the Mets.
-Adrian Gonzalez, Padres, homered and matched his career-high with four RBIs in an 11-1 win over Colorado.
-Travis Buck, Athletics, hit his first career homer and drove in a career-high five runs to help Oakland beat Texas 16-4.
-Craig Biggio, Astros, hit his first grand slam in 13 years with one out in the ninth and Houston beat Milwaukee 6-5.
STILL A HOT-ROD
Alex Rodriguez went 3-for-5 with two home runs in a 7-6 loss to Boston and joined Mike Schmidt, who hit 12 homers in the first 15 games in 1976, as the fastest to reach a dozen in baseball history. He has hit safely in all 15 games this year and leads the majors with 30 RBIs and 65 total bases. Rodriguez moved past Willie Stargell and Stan Musial into the top 25 on baseball’s all-time homer list with 476.
REDEMPTION
Two players who almost cost the Cincinnati Reds a game ended up winning it for them. Scott Hatteberg hit a two-out, solo homer that tied it in the ninth, and Brandon Phillips singled with the bases loaded in the 10th inning Friday night, sending the Cincinnati Reds to a 2-1 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. Both of them had an error on the same play in the fifth inning, giving the Phillies a 1-0 lead that held until the two Cincinnati infielders got another chance.
WALK WOES
Texas pitchers walked 12 Oakland batters in a 16-4 loss Friday night just two days after giving up 10 against the Chicago White Sox. Oakland had scored 26 runs in its previous eight games before breaking out with a season-high total against the Rangers, who lost for the fifth time in six games.
HONORING ROBINSON
was rained out. Mets manager Willie Randolph wore Robinson’s No. 42 and three tribute videos were shown on the video scoreboard at Shea Stadium. New York also recognized four Negro League players and Ralph Branca, who played with Robinson on the Brooklyn Dodgers, during the ceremony.
A GREEN TRIBUTE TO RED
The Red Sox wore green uniforms to honor late Celtics patriarch Red Auerbach, with black “VT” patches in memory of those who died at Virginia Tech. The Red Sox snapped a seven-game home losing streak against the Yankees, including an epic five-game sweep last August, with a 7-6 comeback win.
HOKIE AT HEART
Virginia Tech alumnus Joe Saunders, wearing a Hokies cap, scattered seven hits during his six scoreless innings Friday night in the Los Angeles Angels’ 8-4 victory over Seattle. The only former Hokies player currently in the majors, he also wrote VT on his cleats and scribbled Virginia Tech in the dirt back of the mound in memory of the 32 victims shot to death on the campus last Monday. During a moment of silence for them before the game, Saunders seemed near tears. He received special permission from commissioner Bud Selig to wear the Virginia Tech cap during the game.
STREAKING
Oakland stretched its winning streak to four with a 16-4 win at Texas on Friday.
SNAPPED
David Wright went 0-for-3 with a walk for the Mets in a 7-3 loss to the Braves on Friday night, snapping his club-record hitting streak at 26 games dating to last season. Hubie Brooks (1984) and Mike Piazza (1999) share the one-season record of 24 games in a row.
SPEAKING
“You run out of words and superlatives of what he’s into right now.”- Yankees manager Joe Torre, on Alex Rodriguez’s torrid start to the season. Rodriguez hit two home runs in a 7-6 loss to Boston a day after hitting his second walk-off homer of the year against Cleveland.
SEASONS
April 22
1876 – In the first National League game, Joseph Borden of Boston beat the hometown Philadelphia team 6-5.
1898 – Theodore Breitenstein of the Cincinnati Reds and James Hughes of Baltimore each pitched no-hit games. Breitenstein no-hit the Pittsburgh Pirates 11-0 and Hughes no-hit the Boston Braves 8-0.
1903 – The New York Highlanders lost their first game at Washington 3-1 before 11,950 fans.
1915 – Pinstripes first appeared on Yankees uniforms.
1922 – Ken Williams of the St. Louis Browns hit three home runs against Chicago.
1934 – Chicago’s Lon Warneke pitched his second consecutive one-hitter, beating St. Louis and Dizzy Dean 15-2.
1959 – The Chicago White Sox scored 11 runs with only one hit in the seventh inning of a 20-6 rout of the Kansas City A’s. Johnny Callison had the hit – a single. In the inning, Chicago was the recipient of 10 walks – five with the bases loaded – three Kansas City errors and one hit batsman.
1966 – The Braves won their first game in Atlanta by beating the New York Mets 8-4.
1970 – Tom Seaver of the Mets struck out the last 10 Padres he faced for a 2-1 victory over San Diego. He gave up two hits and finished with a total of 19 strikeouts, tying Steve Carlton’s major league record.
1982 – The Atlanta Braves’ major league record for the fastest start was stopped at 13 straight victories when they lost 2-1 to the Cincinnati Reds.
1993 – Chris Bosio pitched a no-hitter to give the Seattle Mariners a 7-0 win over the Boston Red Sox.
2006 – The Milwaukee Brewers became the first major league team in 40 years to hit five home runs in one inning, beating the Reds 11-0. Three other teams have accomplished the feat: the 1939 New York Giants, 1949 Philadelphia Phillies and 1961 San Francisco Giants – all against Cincinnati as well.