Yasiel Puig's 3 HR Put Dodgers Back In First Place; Yonder Alonso, Jose Ramirez Power Indians To Clinch AL Central

Players of the Day for Saturday, September 15, 2018

Jose Ramirez

American League

The Cleveland Indians clinched the AL Central division outright, doing it in style with a 15-0 blowout of the visiting Detroit Tigers.

Jose Ramirez and Yonder Alonso each had three hits, three scores and two RBI in the rout.

Yonder Alonso

Ramirez, singled, doubled and tripled in four at-bats. Alonso got to the place officially six times, delivering a pair of singles and his 23rd home run of the year.

Mike Clevinger was outstanding on the Cleveland mound, allowing one hit over six innings.

Cleveland is the first team in the majors to clinch a division title and they did it with 14 games left in the regular season.

The Tigers and Indians tangle again in Cleveland, Sunday, 1:10 pm EDT.

National League

Puig: 3 HR, 7 RBI

There was some outstanding work at the plate by the Dodgers in LA's 17-4 hammering of the Cardinals in St. Louis Saturday.

Max Muncy drove in four runs, Cody Bellinger had three hits, one of them a home run, and drove in six, but Yasiel Puig did them all better, smashing three homers and driving in seven runs.

Puig, who was sidelined to open the season and again in mid-July with minor injuries, began his assault on the St. Louis bleachers with a bases empty, 423 bomb to center in the fourth inning, then cracked a three-run homer to left in the fifth, followed by another three-run blast in the eighth.

Puig hit two dingers in the Dodgers' win over St. Louis Monday and is hitting a cool .407 for the month of September. He has 21 homers and 58 RBI on the season.

The third straight win at St. Louis pushed the Dodgers into first place in the NL West, as Colorado dropped its second straight at San Francisco, 3-0. The result also put the Rockies back into the wild card race, now 1/2-game to the good over St. Louis for the second spot.

LA will be looking for a four-game sweep of the Cardinals when the teams hit the field on Sunday, 8:00 pm as the featured game on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball.