Braves Shuffle Cards, 11-4, On Nick Markakis Slam, 5 RBI; Red Sox Hammer Yankees, 11-0, as Chris Sale, Rafael Devers Dominate

Players of the Day for Saturday, June 30, 2018

American League

Sale: 7 IP, 1 H, 0 ER

The biggest series of the weekend has to be the one at Yankee Stadium in New York, where the Red Sox and Yankees are battling for first place in the AL East.

The first two games, however, have hardly lived up to the hype for what's supposed to be a fierce rivalry. On Friday, the Yankees dominated, getting the offense started quickly in an 8-1 win.

Devers: 5-5, GS, 4RBI, 3R

Saturday's game was equally lopsided, though this time it was Boston doing all the scoring. Rafael Devers' grand slam in the opening frame was more than enough run support for Red Sox ace, Chris Sale, who allowed just one hit over seven innings, fanning 11 flailing New York batters.

Devers finished 5-for-5 and scored three runs in the 11-0 rout. In addition to the slam, the Red Sox third baseman doubled, singled three times and scored three runs.

Sale improved to 8-4 on the year, dominating by throwing 72 of 101 pitches for strikes. Sale's 164 Ks are tops in the AL. Washington's Max Scherzer leads the National League with 165.

Yankee starter, Sonny Gray, acquired for Oakland last season just before the trade deadline, allowed six runs on seven hits over just 2 1/3 innings and looks to be expendable for the Yankees. Since joining the franchise, he's 9-13. This season's ERA has ballooned to 5.44.

The rubber game of the series is scheduled for 8:00 pm EDT Sunday as the nationally televised ESPN game.

National League

Markakis: Slam, 5 RBI

While the Phillies were taking one from Washington, 3-2, the Atlanta Braves held their three-game lead in the NL East, shuffling the Cards by an 11-4 score.

It was the second game of a three-game series in St. Louis. The Braves won, 5-1 on Friday and will be looking for a sweep when the teams meet on Sunday, at 2:15 pm EDT.

Doing the most damage for Atlanta was right fielder, Nick Markakis, who is having an outstanding season and looks to be a starter for the NL in the all star game, July 17. Markakis leads all NL outfielders with nearly two million votes as of the latest release.

After doubling and scoring the Braves' first run in the second inning, Markakis blew open a 3-0 game in the fifth inning with a grand slam and for good measure hit a sixth inning sac fly to send Ozzie Albies to the plate for a 10-0 advantage. The veteran outfielder tallied five RBI for the game.

Markakis played nine years for the orioles before switching to Atlanta and the National League in 2015. Along with his .326 batting average, Markakis has nine homers and 56 RBI, fifth in the league.