Murphy powers Braves to sweep of Tigers
Sean Murphy hit two home runs and Reynaldo Lopez pitched five scoreless innings to spark the Atlanta Braves to a 7-0 win over the visiting Detroit Tigers on Wednesday and a sweep of their three-game series.
The Braves have won three straight and six of their last seven. The Tigers have lost four in a row. It was the first time Atlanta has swept a threegame series against Detroit.
Murphy went 4 for 4 with four RBI, three runs scored and produced the fourth multi-homer game of his career.
He hit a two-run homer over the brick wall in right field in the third inning, his first career hit against Tigers starter Tarik Skubal. He iced the game with a two-run blast in the fifth, a 423-foot shot into the seats in left-center field, giving him three homers this season.
Lopez allowed seven hits, one walk and struck out six. He lowered his ERA to 1.57 to take over the major league lead and extended his streak of scoreless innings to 11.
●
Bryan Reynolds extended his hitting streak to 17 games with a two-out homer in the eighth inning and Pittsburgh edged visiting Cincinnati in the rubber match of a three-game series. Reynolds deposited a 1-0 changeup from Nick Martinez (2-5) over the center field wall for his 10th homer this season.
●
Kyle Higashioka had a three-run triple as visiting San Diego defeated Philadelphia to take the series finale. The Padres broke a five-game losing streak and avoided being swept in six games this season by Philadelphia. They also denied the Phillies, who lost for the fifth time in eight games, their National League-best
50th win.
●
Kyle Hendricks struck out a season-high eight in his first start in over a month as Chicago held on to beat visiting San Francisco in the rubber match of a three-game series.