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Major leagues

4 min read

Brandon Nimmo homered and drove in three runs as the New York Mets kept their NL East hopes going for the moment, beating the Washington Nationals 4-2 Tuesday in the first game of a doubleheader.

The Atlanta Braves began the day with a magic number of one for winning the division after sweeping a three-game series from the Mets over the weekend.

The Mets now need to win their final two games and have the Braves lose their last two at Miami to win the NL East for the first time since 2015. Otherwise, the Mets would host a best-of-three wild-card playoff series this weekend and the Braves would get a bye.

If the Mets remain alive for the division, Jacob deGrom may pitch Wednesday’s regular-season finale but manager Buck Showalter was not ready to announce a decision.

Cincinnati 3, Chicago Cubs 2: Spencer Steer doubled off Brandon Hughes in the ninth inning to score Stuart Fairchild and the Cincinnati Reds avoided their 100th loss, beating the Chicago Cubs, 3-2.

The Reds (62-99) are trying to avoid the second 100-loss season in franchise history. They were 61-101 in 1982 while in the process of dismantling the dominant Big Red Machine clubs.

Chuckie Robinson tied it for Cincinnati in the seventh with a two-run homer in the seventh off Keegan Thompson.

Alexis Diaz (7-3) was the winner.

American League

Cleveland 5, Kansas City 3: Cal Quantrill finished the regular season unbeaten at home, improving to 14-0 in his career at Progressive Field after Owen Miller hit a two-run homer to send the Cleveland Guardians to a 5-3 win over the Kansas City Royals.

Quantrill (15-5) was in danger of his unblemished run at home ending before Miller’s shot off Daniel Lynch (4-13) capped Cleveland’s five-run fifth. Quantrill’s 14-game winning streak is the longest in the ballpark’s history.

N.Y. Yankees 5, Texas 4: Aaron Judge slammed his helmet in a rare show of frustration and the Yankees slugger remained at 61 home runs with just two games remaining to break the AL record after New York beat Texas 5-4 to open a day-night doubleheader.

Judge went 1 for 5 with a single and scored the decisive run. But No. 99 didn’t come close to clearing the wall in the Yankees’ 99th win of the season.

Boston 6, Tampa Bay 0: Xander Bogaerts hit a grand slam and Nathan Eovaldi pitched five scoreless innings in what could be his final appearance in a Red Sox uniform to help Boston beat the playoff-bound Tampa Bay Rays 6-0 in a rain-shortened game.

Christian Arroyo added an RBI single for Boston (77-84), which won its fifth straight home game.

It was 55 degrees and misty at the start, and rainy conditions lingered throughout. Boston had just taken a 6-0 lead with two outs in the fifth inning when rain started to fall heavily, prompting a delay. The game was called 52 minutes later.

The Rays (86-75) lost their fourth straight game since clinching a playoff berth. They will be the AL’s No. 6 seed and get a wild-card matchup with AL Central champion Cleveland. The Seattle Mariners get the No. 5 seed and match up with Toronto following its a walk-off win over Detroit on Tuesday in the first game of their doubleheader.

Toronto-Baltimore rained out: The Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays were rained out Tuesday night and are scheduled to play a doubleheader Wednesday to end the regular season.

Wednesday’s traditional doubleheader is set to start at 12:35 p.m. ET.

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