Phillies beat Cubs to clinch first-round bye in playoffs

PHILADELPHIA — Nick Castellanos, Trea Turner and Kody Clemens homered, and the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs 9-6 on Wednesday night and clinched a first-round bye in the playoffs.

Castellanos had three hits and scored three times. Bryson Stott also had three hits and Brandon Marsh drove in three runs for the Phillies, who claimed their first NL East title in 13 years on Monday night.

Coupled with Milwaukee’s 2-1 loss to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia secured the bye and home-field advantage in the NLDS. The Phillies owned the tiebreaker with the Brewers after winning the season series against the NL Central champions.

Nico Hoerner homered twice for Chicago, and Isaac Paredes hit four singles. The Cubs lost two of three in the series to finish with a 39-42 road record.

Philadelphia closed out the home portion of its regular season with a 54-27 mark. A crowd of 42,438 was on hand for the 47th sellout of the season, running the home attendance to 3,308,638 on the year.

The Phillies finish with three games at Washington, beginning on Friday. Philadelphia can clinch home-field advantage through the NL Championship Series by ending the season tied with or ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who entered Wednesday a half-game in front of the Phillies at 93-64.

PIRATES 2, BREWERS 1

PITTSBURGH — Liover Pegeuro slashed a two-run double, Luis Ortiz pitched seven strong innings and Pittsburgh beat Milwaukee.

Ortiz (7-6) allowed one run on four hits with a walk and five strikeouts in seven innings. His only mistake was a second-inning pitch to Jake Bauers that Milwaukee’s designated hitter sent to the seats in right-center for his 12th homer of the season.

GUARDIANS 5, REDS 2

CLEVELAND — José Ramírez hit a three-run homer in the eighth inning after Cleveland pitchers retired the first 18 batters, lifting the AL Central champions to a victory over Cincinnati.

Ramírez hit his 38th homer of the season, connecting against Emilio Pagán (4-5) with two outs to score Steven Kwan and Angel Martínez. The All-Star third baseman also doubled, tripled and scored twice. He has 115 RBIs.

ROYALS 3, NATIONALS 0

WASHINGTON — Five Kansas City relievers pitched 6 2/3 innings of two-hit ball after starter Michael Lorenzen’s early exit, Robbie Grossman hit a two-run double, and the Royals held on to the second American League wild card with a win over Washington.

Michael Massey singled in a run off DJ Herz (4-9) to help lift the Royals to a second-straight shutout victory after a season high-tying seven-game losing streak.

Kansas City and Detroit are both 84-74 but the Royals hold the head-to-head tiebreaker advantage over the Tigers for the second wild-card spot.

TIGERS 7, RAYS 1

DETROIT — Parker Meadows and Spencer Torkelson homered, and Detroit Tigers strengthened its bid for an AL wild card with a win over Tampa Bay.

Detroit moved 10 games over .500 with its fourth consecutive victory. It is tied with Kansas City (84-74) for second in the wild-card standings behind Baltimore.

MARINERS 8, ASTROS 1

HOUSTON — Mitch Garver and Julio Rodríguez homered, and Seattle took advantage of five Houston errors during a victory.

Seattle (82-77) won for the fifth time in seven games as it tries to rally into an AL wild card. It is chasing Detroit and Kansas City for one of the last two spots.