Cubs Win In 11th, White Sox Beat Cardinals, Carrasco Misses No-Hitter

NEW YORK -- Starlin Castro and the Chicago Cubs aren't scoring much lately. No need to against the New York Mets. Castro legged out a run-scoring infield single in the 11th inning, and the Cubs blanked the punchless Mets 2-0 Wednesday night for their second consecutive shutout at Citi Field.

"We're a little bit challenged offensively right now," Chicago manager Joe Maddon said. "A lot of times teams will sink because of that. We have not and I really appreciate that a lot."

Jon Lester threw seven sharp innings and the Cubs overcame a major baserunning blunder to score twice in the 11th. Miguel Montero added an RBI single as Chicago won its eighth straight against the Mets, including the first six meetings this season.

The staggering Mets botched a suicide squeeze in the eighth and a double-play ball in the 11th during their latest flop at the plate. New York was held under two runs for the 20th time this season, tied for most in the majors.

White Sox 7, Cardinals 1

Sweeping a two-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals made it easier for the Chicago White Sox to overlook the three rain delays in the finale after needing 11 innings to win the opener.

"Everybody thinks we'll get a win every day," Jose Quintana said after a strong outing in a 7-1 victory on Wednesday night. "But this is special for us because the Cardinals are the best team in the National League."

Melky Cabrera hit the go-ahead homer and the White Sox pulled away late with a five-run ninth.

"They're a good team, missing some key pieces, but it's nice to come in here and beat a team like this," manager Robin Ventura said. "So, there's some optimistic stuff going on right now."

The Cardinals lead the majors with a 51-26 record and had a six-game winning streak entering the series but were held to a single run in each of the two losses. They were 0 for 16 with runners in scoring position, including seven hitless at-bats Wednesday.

Indians 8, Rays 0

Major league hitters don't swing and miss as often you may think. When they swing, they put the ball in play 41 percent of the time, hit a foul ball 37 percent of the time and swing and miss just 21.6 percent of the time, or about one of every five swings.

Which helps tells us about the type of stuff that Cleveland Indians pitcher Carlos Carrasco had Wednesday night against the Tampa Bay Rays. Carrasco came within one strike of throwing the Indians' first no-hitter since Len Barker's perfect game way back in 1989, and while it was painful to see Joey Butler line an 0-2 changeup over the leaping Jason Kipnis, Carrasco's performance rates as one of the most impressive of 2015, not just in results but in pure dominance.

The Rays swung at 67 of Carrasco's 124 pitches -- and missed 30 of them, a swing-and-miss rate of 45 percent, or more than double the MLB average. That's the most swings and misses in a game this year, three more than Max Scherzer generated in his one-hit, 16-strikeout outing June 14 against the Milwaukee Brewers. The last pitcher with 30 swings and misses in a game was Francisco Liriano of the Minnesota Twins in 2012 start against the Oakland A's. And the last one with more? I'm not sure. Our database only goes back to 2009 and nobody else had 30.

Wednesday, July 1 Scoreboard

Cincinnati 2, Minnesota 1

Toronto 11, Boston 2

Oakland 4, Colorado 1

Seattle 7, San Diego 0

New York Yankees 3, Los Angeles Angels 1

Baltimore 4, Texas 2

Milwaukee 9, Philadelphia 5

Pittsburgh 9, Detroit 3

Atlanta 4, Washington 1

Chicago Cubs 2, New York Mets 0 (F/11)

Miami 6, San Francisco 5

Cleveland 8, Tampa Bay 1

Houston 6, Kansas City 5

Chicago White Sox 7, St. Louis 1

Los Angeles Dodgers 4, Arizona 3

Thursday, July 2 Schedule (All Times Central)

San Francisco at Miami, 11:10 a.m.

Cleveland at Tampa Bay, 11:10 a.m.

Pittsburgh at Detroit, 12:08 p.m.

Chicago at New York, 12:10 p.m.

Milwaukee at Philadelphia, 5:35 p.m.

Texas at Baltimore, 6:05 p.m.

Boston at Toronto, 6:07 p.m.

Washington at Atlanta, 6:10 p.m.

San Diego at St. Louis, 6:15 p.m.

Minnesota at Kansas City, 7:10 p.m.

Colorado at Arizona, 8:40 p.m.

Seattle at Oakland, 9:05 p.m.