Mets, KC get wins

Published 2:23 am Wednesday, October 21, 2015

CHICAGO (AP) — Daniel Murphy homered for a record-tying fifth straight game in the postseason, sending Jacob deGrom and the New York Mets over the Chicago Cubs 5-2 on Tuesday night for a 3-0 lead in the National League Championship Series.

Yoenis Cespedes and David Wright each had three hits for the Mets. Cespedes scored the go-ahead run on a two-out wild pitch by Trevor Cahill on a strikeout of Michael Conforto in the sixth inning.

Murphy tied the homer streak mark set by Carlos Beltran in 2004.

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DeGrom pitched seven effective innings to improve to 3-0 in his first postseason. Jeurys Familia closed for his fifth save of the playoffs.

The Mets can advance to the World Series for the first time in 15 years with one more victory over Chicago in Game 4 of the best-of-seven matchup Wednesday night. Rookie Steven Matz gets the start for the Mets while Jason Hammel goes for the Cubs.

Kyle Schwarber and Jorge Soler homered for the Cubs, who have scored just five runs in the series.

Royals 14,

Blue Jays 2

TORONTO (AP) — Ben Zobrist hit a two-run homer on knuckleballer R.A. Dickey’s fourth pitch of the game, Alex Rios connected an inning later and the Kansas City Royals routed the Toronto Blue Jays 14-2 Tuesday to move one win from a second straight World Series.

Kansas City moved ahead 3-1 in the best-of-seven AL Championship Series and can win the pennant Wednesday, when Edinson Volquez starts against Toronto’s Marco Estrada in a Game 1 rematch.

Lorenzo Cain scored on a passed ball and Mike Moustakas had a sacrifice fly in an LCS-record four-run top of the first.

Kansas led 5-2 in the seventh before breaking away.

Blue Jays infielder Cliff Pennington relieved in the ninth inning, becoming the first primarily position player to pitch in the postseason, STATS said.