The Yankees kicked off the Subway Series with a convincing 6-2 win, thanks to a big four-run third inning that put them on top for good. It got a little hairy in the ninth inning prompting Aaron Boone to go to Luke Weaver for the final out of the game, but he induced an easy fly ball out of Juan Soto to seal it away.

The win got them started on the right foot for rivalry weekend, but it also gives them a chance to get some more breathing room against their more official rivals in the AL East. A slumping Red Sox team has ceded some ground to them over the last few days, and if they fell again the Yankees would have a five-game lead over the rest of the pack in the East, giving them a safety net of more than a single series. Let’s jump right into how Boston did before we circle around to the rest of the league.

Atlanta Braves (23-22) 4, Boston Red Sox (22-24) 2

Garrett Crochet and Chris Sale is as fine a pitching matchup that you could ask for, and they delivered on Friday. Both starters went seven strong for their teams, scattering a handful of hits and collecting eight strikeouts in the process, and both were only damaged by solo shots. Unfortunately for Crochet, he ended up giving up one more long ball than Sale did.

Matt Olson got the scoring started in the second inning, driving one out over the Monster in left field, and Sean Murphy went back-to-back with another shot to left field. Crochet locked in from there, but he’d need help to get a chance at tying the game back up and Sale wasn’t about to hand the lead away that easily. The former Sox ace dominated in front of his old crowd, with one of the few mistakes he made coming in the seventh inning with his pitch count starting to rise. Rob Refsnyder managed to turn on a slider out in the middle of the plate and mashed it over the Monster for a solo shot of his own, cutting the deficit to one, but Sale recovered to end the inning without further drama.

Greg Weissert took over for Crochet in the eighth and delivered a clean frame, but Liam Hendriks wasn’t as fortunate in the ninth. He got two outs but also walked a pair of batters, prompting a pitching change to Brennan Bernardino. He promptly walked three straight batters to allow two runs in, a series of mistakes that would cost Boston dearly. In the bottom of the ninth they got a rally going against Raisel Iglesias, leading off with a hit-by-pitch before Trevor Story hit a two-out single to score the runner. That would’ve been enough to tie the game had Boston’s pitchers remembered what the strike zone looked like in the top half, but instead Wilyer Abreu flew out to end the game down two.

For Atlanta, this was a milestone win. They jumped above .500 for the first time all season, finally recovering from the 0-7 tailspin that they started the year out on. They’d been flirting with it for weeks, as a big win streak after they bottomed out at 3-10 saw them get within two games by the end of April, but they’ve been treading water since. For Boston, this was their fourth straight loss and their 10th loss in their last 15 games.

Houston Astros (23-21) 6, Texas Rangers (24-22) 3

One big inning was all it took for the Astros to pull this win out. The Rangers had taken an early 2-0 lead in the second inning on a two-run single from Jonah Heim, but Lance McCullers Jr. rebounded well in giving Houston four innings in his third start of the year. The bullpen behind him was dominant, shutting Texas down until it was far too late in the ninth to accomplish much, giving their offense time to wake up from the slumber that Nathan Eovaldi had them in.

That wake up call came in the seventh inning. Hoby Milner had entered the game in Eovaldi’s place for the final out of the sixth, and stayed out to face Houston in the next inning to disastrous results. He got an out to start but then gave up a single to Jake Meyers, and a fly ball to get within an out of escaping unharmed. Cam Smith then doubled to center to get on the scoreboard, and Milner’s day was done. Shawn Armstrong was in but the Astros were just getting started, working back-to-back walks to load the bases. Isaac Paredes singled home a pair of runs, and then Christian Walker delivered the big blow — a three-run jack to left to make it 6-2.

Josh Jung got a single run back in the ninth on a solo shot, but unfortunately for Texas that was the only hit they got past the fourth inning, and it wasn’t nearly enough to close the gap.

Other Games

Detroit Tigers (30-15) 5, Toronto Blue Jays (21-23) 4: Detroit became the first team to 30 wins across MLB with a nailbiter against Toronto. They were up 4-0 after five innings thanks to Riley Greene hitting a solo shot and doubling home two, but Toronto came storming back with a two-run homer off the bat of Daulton Varsho and an RBI single from Miles Straw. The Tigers got the game-winning run in the eighth inning though, when Javier Báez launched a solo shot to left field.

Cincinnati Reds (22-24) 5, Cleveland Guardians (25-19) 4: A big four-run second inning propelled Cincinnati to victory here, led by a three-run homer from Will Benson. Austin Hays made it 5-0 with a solo shot an inning later, but Cleveland nearly crept back in the game. Carlos Santana knocked across two in the fourth, Bo Naylor hit a solo homer in the fifth, and José Ramírez hit his ninth homer of the year in the eighth to bring the Guardians within one. A clean ninth inning from Emilio Pagán closed the door on Cleveland’s comeback, however.

Minnesota Twins (25-20) 3, Milwaukee Brewers (21-24) 0: Nobody is hotter than the Minnesota Twins right now, and they secured their 12th straight win with a shutout of the Brewers. Their offense netted them two runs in the first on a pair of RBI singles from Ty France and Kody Clemens, and a double-play ball resulted in a run coming home in the second inning as well. That’d be more than enough for Joe Ryan and company, as the right-hander delivered six strong innings with nine punchouts before the bullpen came in to get seven strikeouts in the final three innings. A 16-strikeout performance overall from your pitching staff? Yeah, the Twins are firing on all cylinders right now.

Seattle Mariners (24-19) 5, San Diego Padres (27-16) 1: Seattle cruised to victory thanks to a steady supply of runs from their offense, and a lights-out performance by their pitching staff. J.P. Crawford, Rowdy Tellez, and Cal Raleigh all homered for the Mariners, and Logan Evans pitched six shutout innings scattering seven hits to avoid any dangerous frames. The Padres broke the shutout in the ninth on a Jake Cronenworth double, but failed to sustain the rally for long.