Fowler Leads Cardinals To Sweep, Cubs Beat Brewers

By ESPN

Dexter Fowler feels his swing is getting closer to what he expects.

Fowler hit his first two home runs for the St. Louis Cardinals, who swept the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday for their third straight 2-1 victory over Pittsburgh.

"I feel like I've been swinging the bat for the past few days pretty good," Fowler said. "I just haven't had the results. I've been sticking with it."

Fowler, who left the World Series champion Chicago Cubs to sign an $82.5 million, five-year contract with St. Louis, was hitting .132 after going hitless in four at-bats Monday.

He rebounded with a triple on Tuesday and had three of the Cardinals' eight hits Wednesday, including a third-inning drive into the right-field bullpen and a shot down the right-field line in the fifth, both off Gerrit Cole (1-2).

"He got a couple pitches that were up and put good swings on them," Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said.

Fowler said his experience helped him deal with the rough start.

"It was just something mechanical that caused a lot of problems, and I got that straightened out," he said. "Ever since I corrected that I've been feeling a lot better."

Josh Bell had tied the score with a fourth-inning homer to center against Michael Wacha (2-1), who had retired his first 10 batters.

St. Louis is 6-9, winning its opener and losing nine of 11 before the sweep.

"It's huge," Cardinals first baseman Matt Carpenter said of the sweep. "It was just a much better series for us."

Wacha allowed one run and four hits in 6 ⅔ innings. Matt Bowman relieved with two on and struck out Jordy Mercer to end the seventh, and Kevin Siegrist worked around a walk and two errors in the eighth. Pittsburgh left the bases loaded when Carpenter, who committed the first error, made a diving stop at first base and raced to beat Gregory Polanco to first.

"I'm just trying to stay locked in and make a play to help get us out of an ugly inning," Carpenter said. "Thankfully, Siegrist made another good pitch and worked his way out of it. I was able to make a play for him, and we were able to limit the damage there."

With closer Seung Hwan Oh unavailable after pitching the two previous games, former closer Trevor Rosenthal pitched the ninth. John Jaso singled with one out, Rosenthal threw a called third strike past Mercer, then struck out Jose Osuna for his first save this season.

Cole gave up six hits in six innings, struck out eight and walked none.

Cubs 7, Brewers 4

One mighty swing by Addison Russell finished off another comeback win for the Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs say they never quit -- it's inscribed on their World Series rings -- and they mean it.

Russell hit a game-ending, three-run homer off Neftali Feliz in Chicago's four-run ninth, sending the Cubs to a 7-4 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday.

Russell's second homer of the season helped Chicago take two of three from Milwaukee after dropping the series opener Monday. The Cubs trailed 5-0 on Tuesday night before rallying for a 9-7 victory.

"That's the type of style that we play," Russell said. "We feel strongly about that. It seems like whenever your count us out, we seem to have a spark."

The Cubs overcame a rough outing for right-hander Kyle Hendricks, who tied his career-high with four walks in five innings. Mike Montgomery, Pedro Strop, Koji Uehara and Wade Davis (2-0) combined for four scoreless innings, allowing two hits.

Chicago trailed 4-1 before Willson Contreras' RBI single in the sixth off Carlos Torres. Russell added a run-scoring bloop single in the eighth, poking the ball just over Eric Thames at first base.

Trying for his first four-out save this year, Feliz (0-2) struck out Javier Baez to strand a runner on third in the eighth. But Jon Jay walked with one out in the ninth, took third on a single by pinch-hitter Miguel Montero and scored on Kris Bryant's single.

Anthony Rizzo grounded out, and Russell followed with a drive into the left-field bleachers on a 2-0 count.

"You know when you go for a four-out save that something can happen in the ninth and to the Cubs' credit, they kept extending at-bats," Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. "That's the risk of doing it. But I'd do it again, because that at-bat in the eighth where he struck out Baez was big, too."

Travis Shaw and Jett Bandy homered off Hendricks, who finished third in the NL Cy Young Award voting last year.

Brewers starter Tommy Milone allowed one run and three hits in five innings on a cold afternoon at Wrigley Field, where the temperature dipped into the 40s. Rain delayed the start by 55 minutes.

"It was a tough day all around," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. "But we just keep coming back for more.

"It is the resiliency, it is the fact that we do not quit. It's on the ring. `We don't quit.' It's on the ring and there's a perfect example of it."

Chicago went 4-5 on its first homestand of the season.

Hendricks walked Milone in the fourth -- the first time in his four-year big league career that Hendricks walked a pitcher.

Yankees 9, White Sox 1

Aaron Judge's latest mighty homer soared deep into left field, giving the Bronx one last jolt on a frigid night.

Until next time, Yankee Stadium.

Judge hit a homer to more than halfway up the bleachers, Masahiro Tanaka pitched seven innings of one-run ball and the New York Yankees beat the Chicago White Sox 9-1 Wednesday to wrap a superb homestand.

New York went 8-1 over its first stretch in the Bronx this season, its most wins in a homestand since going 9-1 from July 17-26, 2009. The Yankees have the major leagues' best home winning percentage since last July 17 at .702 (33-14).

The Yankees started 1-4 but have won nine of 10 since. They were 8-14 last April.

"A lot of energy in this stadium this whole homestand, and I think we just kind of fed off that," Judge said.

Judge followed Starlin Castro's three-run shot in the fifth with his 448-foot drive for the Yankees' first back-to-back homers of the season. Chase Headley hit a two-run homer in the first inning and Aaron Hicks also went deep to give New York a season-high four home runs.

Dylan Covey (0-1) got beat in his second major league start, allowing eight runs, 10 hits and three homers over five innings.

A night after totaling four hits -- none that left the infield -- in a 4-1 loss to Chicago, the Yankees got five hits the first time through the order, all on line drives to the outfield.

Covey recovered for a spell, but then Castro went deep on a 3-0 pitch into the visiting bullpen in left field for his third homer this season, and Judge followed with his soaring shot.

Statcast measured Judge's hit at 115.5 mph, the fourth-hardest hit homer this season. Judge was disappointed to hear it didn't go farther -- teammate Matt Holliday hit a 459-foot home run off Derek Holland on Monday night.

"Man, I don't know," Judge said, adding "I thought I beat him, but I guess not."

"I question the distance they measured that in," manager Joe Girardi said.

Tanaka (2-1) built off getting his first win of the season Friday against St. Louis. The right-hander induced 10 groundouts, struck out six and allowed six hits and two walks, lowering his ERA from 8.36 to 6.00.

Hicks got his first-career pinch-homer in the eighth inning. He has four homers in 10 games this season, already halfway to his total in 123 games last season.

Bryan Mitchell was perfect over 1 1/3 innings for New York on his 26th birthday, and Tommy Layne finished.

Wednesday, April 19 Scoreboard

St. Louis 2, Pittsburgh 1

Chicago Cubs 7, Milwaukee 4

Oakland 9, Texas 1

Seattle 10, Miami 5

New York Yankees 9, Chicago White Sox 1

Toronto 3, Boston 0

Baltimore 2, Cincinnati 0

New York Mets 5, Philadelphia 4

Tampa Bay 8, Detroit 7

Washington 14, Atlanta 4

Houston 5, Los Angeles Angels 1

Kansas City 2, San Francisco 0

Los Angeles Dodgers 4, Colorado 2

San Diego 1, Arizona 0

Cleveland at Minnesota, Postponed

Thursday, April 20 Schedule (All Times Central)

Boston at Toronto, 11:37 a.m.

Cleveland at Minnesota, 12:10 p.m.

Detroit at Tampa Bay, 12:10 p.m.

Los Angeles Angels at Houston, 1:10 p.m.

Baltimore at Cincinnati, 6:10 p.m.

Philadelphia at New York Mets, 6:10 p.m.

Washington at Atlanta, 6:35 p.m.

Kansas City at Texas, 7:05 p.m.

St. Louis at Milwaukee, 7:10 p.m.

Arizona at San Diego, 8:10 p.m.

Seattle at Oakland, 9:05 p.m.

Friday, April 21 Schedule (All Times Central)

Boston at Baltimore, 6:05 p.m.

Atlanta at Philadelphia, 6:05 p.m.

New York Yankees at Pittsburgh, 6:05 p.m.

Washington at New York Mets, 6:10 p.m.

Chicago Cubs at Cincinnati, 6:10 p.m.

Houston at Tampa Bay, 6:10 p.m.

Kansas City at Texas, 7:05 p.m.

Cleveland at Chicago White Sox, 7:10 p.m.

St. Louis at Milwaukee, 7:10 p.m.

Detroit at Minnesota, 7:10 p.m.

San Francisco at Colorado, 7:40 p.m.

Los Angeles Dodgers at Arizona, 8:40 p.m.

Seattle at Oakland, 9:05 p.m.

Toronto at Los Angeles Angels, 9:07 p.m.

Miami at San Diego, 9:10 p.m.

Saturday, April 22 Schedule (All Times Central)

Chicago Cubs at Cincinnati, 12:10 p.m.

Detroit at Minnesota, 1:10 p.m.

Seattle at Oakland, 3:05 p.m.

Washington at New York Mets, 3:05 p.m.

New York Mets at Pittsburgh, 3:05 p.m.

Houston at Tampa Bay, 5:10 p.m.

Boston at Baltimore, 6:05 p.m.

Atlanta at Philadelphia, 6:05 p.m.

Cleveland at Chicago White Sox, 6:10 p.m.

St. Louis at Milwaukee, 6:10 p.m.

Kansas City at Texas, 7:05 p.m.

San Francisco at Colorado, 7:10 p.m.

Los Angeles Dodgers at Arizona, 7:10 p.m.

Miami at San Diego, 7:40 p.m.

Toronto at Los Angeles Angels, 8:07 p.m.

Sunday, April 23 Schedule (All Times Central)

Chicago Cubs at Cincinnati, 12:10 p.m.

Houston at Tampa Bay, 12:10 p.m.

Boston at Baltimore, 12:35 p.m.

Atlanta at Philadelphia, 12:35 p.m.

New York Yankees at Pittsburgh, 12:35 p.m.

Cleveland at Chicago White Sox, 1:10 p.m.

St. Louis at Milwaukee, 1:10 p.m.

Detroit at Minnesota, 1:10 p.m.

Kansas City at Texas, 2:05 p.m.

San Francisco at Colorado, 2:10 p.m.

Toronto at Los Angeles Angels, 2:37 p.m.

Seattle at Oakland, 3:05 p.m.

Los Angeles Dodgers at Arizona, 3:10 p.m.

Miami at San Diego, 3:40 p.m.

Washington at New York Mets, 7 p.m.