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Yankees Rivalry Roundup: Red Sox smoke A’s, Kyle Tucker leads the Astros

Catch up on last night’s key American League matchups.

MLB: Houston Astros at Texas Rangers Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

The Yankees took care of business last night, albeit in a weird way. They didn’t push across an earned run in their 2-0 win over the Rays, being outhit to boot. Still, every win counts, and ones against key rivals are even more important.

Here’s how their other top AL competitors fared on Tuesday.

Oakland Athletics (21-42) vs. Boston Red Sox (33-29)

It figures that the A’s can’t even be a little bit helpful. Nick Pivetta shoved, to be true, but Oakland is well on their way to proving folks right when predictions about a 100-loss team came around in the spring. Former Baby Bomber Rob Refsnyder, annoyingly, went 3-for-4 at the top of the Red Sox order, and both JD Martinez and Rafael Devers went deep to pace the Sox. Sean Murphy, as has oft been the case this year, provided the only highlights for Athletics fan, chipping in with a solo shot as Oakland fell, 6-1.

Baltimore Orioles (27-36) vs. Toronto Blue Jays (36-25)

We had a nail-biter north of the border, as Yusei Kikuchi’s strange season continued and the O’s and Blue Jays traded blows en route to Baltimore hanging on, 6-5.

Matt Chapman blasted that deep home run and top prospect Gabriel Moreno added his first big-league RBI, but the four extra base hits Kikuchi allowed were too much to get past.

Would you have believed, back in April, that the O’s would be on pace for 70 wins? They’re still not good, certainly, but they’ve hung around with the big boys in the AL East better than a lot of us probably could have guessed.

Houston Astros (38-24) vs. Texas Rangers (29-32)

Speaking of nail-biters and bad teams hanging around: Texas. The Rangers outhit the Astros 8-5, and José Urquidy’s rocky season continued. Three earned runs in six innings is technically a quality start, and his 4.50 ERA on the day lowered that mark overall, but he didn’t miss many bats and Nathaniel Lowe crushed a long home run off him.

Fortunately for the Astros, the five hits they managed all came within the right sequence.

Dane Dunning, despite walking as many men as he struck out, limited the ‘stros to six baserunners and no runs. The bullpen coughed it up, with no blow bigger than Kyle Tucker’s two-run home run that put Houston ahead for good. After a mediocre April, Tucker has crushed the ball to the tune of a 170 wRC+, putting himself back amongst the conversation of best players in the AL.

Minnesota Twins (36-28) vs. Seattle Mariners (28-34)

We close out with our West Coast game, where two big swings made all the difference in the Twins’ loss. Eugenio Suarez and Ty France both hit home runs in consecutive innings, plating the first four M’s runs of the game.

Logan Gilbert was strong yet again, building on his 2.22 ERA with six shutout innings, allowing four hits and just a single walk against six strikeouts. The Twins and their talented offense just couldn’t get anything going against Gilbert or the three relievers Seattle threw out after him, and the Mariners took the opener of the series.