The Divisional playoffs continued Wednesday night on four fronts two in the American League and in the National League as they continued their march to meet in the World Series 2020.

In the American League Tampa Bay Rays doubled the NY Yankees 8-4 on Wednesday night breaking open a tight scoring 4 times over the last 5 innings against Yankees pitchers in which Tampa held a slim 3-1 lead in the game.

On their way to victory they put home a run in the 5th and 3 in the 6th and allowed a late Yankees run in the bottom of the 9th.

Kevin Kiermaier and Michael Perez did most of the Rays damage knocking in three runs each with single contributions going to Willy Adames and Randy Arozarena while starting pitcher Charlie Morton went 5 innings allowing one run on 4 hits striking out 6 and walking two runners.

John Curtiss, Shane McClanahan and Diego Castillo mopped up for the Rays in the win as they took 2 games to 1 lead in the best of five series.

Giancarlo Stanton had a solid game for the Yankees as he drove in a pair of runs to lead their offence and New York starting pitcher Masahiro Tanaka got rocked for five runs on 8 hits and had 4 strikeouts and base on balls in four innings of work in taking the loss.

In Oakland they came back from a 7-4 deficit to come back and beat the Houston Astros 9-7 in a slugfest of offence in a high scoring affair.

Chad Pinder was the big producer for Oakland, knocking in four runs and had help from Marcus Semien, Tommy La Stella, Matt Olson, Mark Canha, and Sean Murphy drove in the other five runs in the match.

Jesus Luzardo the Oakland starting pitcher gave up four Astros runs on five hits with two strikeouts and 2 walks while allowing two home runs for the opposition and was relieved by Yusmeiro Petit

Who gave 3 runs in a 1/3 of an inning and the Astros opened up 3 more runs opened up a 7-4 lead cue the Oakland come back as they hammered the Houston staff after starter Jose Urquidy gave up four runs early in the game and left with his club in front.

Josh James and Brooks Raley the middle relievers got hammered late in the game giving up the game winning runs to Oakland getting rocked by the Astros for five runs on four hits as the visitors never recovered from the late attack as they fell 9-7 to the Athletics.

National League               

The Atlanta Braves extended their series lead to 2-0 against the Miami Marlins as Ian Anderson pitched a gem for the visiting Braves going 5 and 2/3 innings striking out 8 and walking 1 and the bullpen took over after that as Darren O’Day, Tyler Matzek, Will Smith and Mark Melacon mopped up the win.

Darby Swanson and Travis d,Arnaud each drove in a run in the game for the winning Braves as they took a two game lead in the division series against the Florida Marlins as their pitching was solid as their starter Pablo Lopez in 5 innings of work just gave the two runs allowing 3 hits while striking out seven Atlanta batters and giving up two home runs.

In the late game the Los Angeles Dodgers edged the San Diego Padres by a narrow score of 6-5 to take a 2-0 lead in their series as well as the visitors from San Diego scored twice in the 9th to make the game close and must now beat the Dodgers three straight games to win the series.

The Dodgers led 4-1 after 4 innings and 6-3 after the 7th was complete before the Padres made things interesting in the 9th falling short of their comeback 6-5.

Corey Seager and Matt Muncy each drove home a pair of runs in the game for the Dodgers and single runs knocked in by Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger they got a great performance from Clayton Kershaw pitching 6 innings giving up 3 runs on 6 hits and striking out six Padres.

The Bullpen of Blake Treinen, Brusdar Graterol, Kenley Jensen, and Joe Kelly mopped up the Dodgers’ win.

For the Padres their offence was led by five different players knocking in runs Manny Machado, Eric Hosmer, Will Meyers, Mitch Moreland, and Trent Grisham.

Starter Zach Davis gave up four Dodger runs on 9 hits with 3 strikeouts and allowed one LA home run. Middle reliever Pierce Johnson gave up the other two Dodger runs in a 1/3 inning of work that made the difference in San Diego 6-5 loss on this night.

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