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ST. LOUIS — The winless Miami Marlins, who are off to the worst start in the franchise’s 33-year history, dropped their ninth consecutive game on Saturday, losing 3-1 to Steven Matz and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Iván Herrera and Brendan Donovan each had two hits for St. Louis. Jordan Walker contributed an RBI double.

Matz (2-0) surrendered four hits in five scoreless innings. Ryan Helsley pitched the ninth for his third save.

“I thought my fastball was working really well,” said Matz, who threw 85 pitches. “I’d definitely like to go deeper into the game. Bullpen did a great job. It was a good win.”

The Cardinals turned two double plays. Through nine games, St. Louis has not committed an error.

“Guys are continuing to play really good defense,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “Details matter. They’re making it important.”

Miami’s Trevor Rogers (0-1) was charged with three runs, two earned, and five hits in five innings. He struck out three and walked three.

“They’re finding holes and they’re finding grass. … My stuff feels good. It just didn’t go my way,” Rogers said.

The 0-9 Marlins are the only winless team in baseball. The New York Mets, who dropped their first seven games, beat the Detroit Tigers 2-1 on Thursday for their first win.

Baltimore holds the big league record with 21 losses to start the 1988 season.

“It always starts with starting pitching,” Miami manager Skip Schumaker said. “No one ever has lost from a shutout before but that’s asking a lot. I think collectively all together, we have to figure it out. I’m not telling people to do more than they can do. I don’t need one guy to carry the team. We’ve talked. We don’t need any more talking.”

Miami has lost 10 consecutive games dating to last season. It has dropped 13 of its past 16 at Busch Stadium.

“We’ve got to find ways to win,” Schumaker said. “That’s the tough part. We have to figure it out pretty soon.”

The Cardinals scored two runs in the fourth. After Herrera singled and Nolan Gorman walked, Walker doubled down the left-field line. Walker was called out at second, but the call was overturned after it was challenged by St. Louis.

Gorman was thrown out at home on a grounder to third, but Walker scored on an errant pickoff throw to first by Rogers.

“That mental error — the pickoff move — can’t happen,” Rogers said. “Got to make that play. It’s something I’ve done since I was a little kid.”

The Marlins have allowed 10 unearned runs this season.

St. Louis added a run in the fifth. Herrera singled home Donovan, who led off with a double.

“Little things add up to big things,” Donovan said. “Everybody’s showing up and pulling on the right end of the rope.”

Miami scored in the eighth against Andrew Kittredge. Luis Arraez doubled and scored on a single by Josh Bell, who had two hits.

“Other than that, we just couldn’t get anything going,” Schumaker said.

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Springer’s 7 RBIs help Jays pile on Yankees late

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Springer's 7 RBIs help Jays pile on Yankees late

George Springer had a career-high seven RBIs, including his ninth grand slam, and the Toronto Blue Jays celebrated Canada Day by beating the Yankees 12-5 on Tuesday and closing within one game of American League East-leading New York.

The seven RBIs are tied for the second most by any Blue Jays player in a home game, behind Edwin Encarnación (nine RBIs in 2015), according to ESPN Research.

Andrés Giménez had a go-ahead, three-run homer for the Blue Jays, who overcame a 2-0 deficit against Max Fried. After the Yankees tied the score 4-4 in the seventh, Toronto broke open the game in the bottom half against a reeling Yankees bullpen.

Springer went 3-for-4, starting the comeback with a solo homer in the fourth against Fried and boosting the lead to 9-5 with the slam off Luke Weaver after Ernie Clement‘s go-ahead single off shortstop Anthony Volpe‘s glove. Springer has 13 homers this season.

Toronto won the first two games of the four-game series and closed within one game of the Yankees for the first time since before play on April 20.

New York went 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position, dropping to 3-for-24 in the series, while the Blue Jays were 5-for-7. After going 13-14 in June, the Yankees fell to 10-14 against AL East rivals.

The Associate Press contributed to this report.

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Astros’ Alvarez to see hand specialist after setback

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Astros' Alvarez to see hand specialist after setback

DENVER — Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez has experienced a setback in his recovery from a broken right hand and will see a specialist.

Astros general manager Dana Brown said Alvarez felt pain when he arrived Tuesday at the team’s spring training complex in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he had a workout a day earlier. Alvarez also took batting practice Saturday at Daikin Park.

He will be shut down until he’s evaluated by the specialist.

“It’s a tough time going through this with Yordan, but I know that he’s still feeling pain and the soreness in his hand,” Brown said before Tuesday night’s series opener at Colorado, which the Astros won 6-5. “We’re not going to try to push it or force him through anything. We’re just going to allow him to heal and get a little bit more answers as to what steps we take next.”

Alvarez has been sidelined for nearly two months. The injury was initially diagnosed as a muscle strain, but when Alvarez felt pain again while hitting in late May, imaging revealed a small fracture.

The 28-year-old outfielder, who has hit 31 homers or more in each of the past four seasons, had been eyeing a return as soon as this weekend at the Los Angeles Dodgers. Now it’s uncertain when he’ll play.

“We felt like he was close because he had felt so good of late,” Brown said, “but this is certainly news that we didn’t want.”

Also Tuesday, the Astros officially placed shortstop Jeremy Peña on the 10-day injured list with a fractured rib and recalled infielder Shay Whitcomb from Triple-A Sugar Land.

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Ohtani’s 30th HR before break ties Dodgers mark

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Ohtani's 30th HR before break ties Dodgers mark

Shohei Ohtani reached 30 homers for the fifth straight season, hitting a fourth-inning drive after fouling a pitch off the plate umpire, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago White Sox 6-1 on Tuesday night.

Ohtani fouled the ball off Alan Porter’s right knee in the fourth. Ohtani checked on the umpire and stood by watching until Parker got up under his own power. The three-time MVP then hit a 408-foot shot to center, snapping an 0-for-6 skid and extending the lead to 6-1. He tied Cody Bellinger in 2019 for most home runs before the All-Star break in Dodgers history; Bellinger won National League MVP that year.

Ohtani joined Seattle‘s Cal Raleigh (33) and Aaron Judge of the Yankees (30) as players with at least 30 homers by the All-Star break; it marks the fifth season that three players have reached the 30-homer threshold before the break (2019, 1998, 1994, 1969).

As for Ohtani, this is his third season hitting at least 30 home runs before the break, tying Ken Griffey Jr. for third most in MLB history (Judge and Mark McGwire each did so for four seasons).

During the seventh-inning stretch, Ohtani walked over and checked on Porter again before leading off.

Los Angeles scored its most runs this season in support of Yoshinobu Yamamoto (8-6), staking the Japanese right-hander to a 4-0 lead in the first inning.

The Dodgers won for the 13th time in 16 games and opened a season-high, eight-game NL West lead. They are 16-5 (.762 win percentage) since June 8, the best record in MLB during that span.

Every run Tuesday night was scored with two outs.

Yamamoto allowed one run and three hits in seven innings, struck out eight and walked one.

White Sox rookie Shane Smith (3-6) got two quick outs in the first before walking Will Smith and Max Muncy back-to-back. Teoscar Hernández followed with an RBI single, Andy Pages hit a run-scoring double and Michael Conforto had a two-run single.

Chicago’s lone run came on Lenyn Sosa‘s RBI single in the third.

ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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