Major League Baseball Roundup Monday’s American League, National League Division Series Games

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Red Sox 16, Yankees 1

NEW YORK

Brock Holt became the first player to hit for the cycle in a postseason game and the Boston Red Sox routed the New York Yankees to grab a 2-1 lead in their best-of-five AL Division Series. Andrew Benintendi lined a three-run double and Holt tripled home two more in a seven-run fourth inning that quickly turned the latest playoff matchup between these longtime rivals into a laugher. Handed a big early lead, Nathan Eovaldi shut down his former team during New York’s most lopsided defeat in 396 postseason games. Boston battered an ineffective Luis Severino and silenced a charged-up Yankee Stadium crowd that emptied out fast on a night when Red Sox rookie manager Alex Cora made all the right moves. By the ninth, backup catcher Austin Romine was on the mound for New York — he gave up a two-run homer to Holt that completed his cycle. Game 4 is Tuesday night in the Bronx, where the 108-win Red Sox can put away the wild-card Yankees for good and advance to the AL Championship Series against Houston. Rick Porcello is scheduled to pitch for Boston against CC Sabathia.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

Dodgers 6, Braves 2

ATLANTA

Manny Machado hit a three-run homer, David Freese came through again in the postseason and the Los Angeles Dodgers advanced to the NL Championship Series for the third year in a row, eliminating the Atlanta Braves with a victory. The Dodgers won the best-of-five Division Series 3-1 and will face the Milwaukee Brewers. Coming off a tense victory in Game 3, the Baby Braves grabbed the lead on pinch-hitter Kurt Suzuki’s two-run single in the fourth. Freese, the 2011 World Series MVP with St. Louis, countered with pinch-hit single of his own in the sixth off Jonny Venters (0-1), driving home Cody Bellinger and Yasiel Puig for a 3-2 lead. Machado finished off Atlanta in the seventh, launching a 1-2 pitch from rookie Chad Sobotka over the Dodgers’ bullpen — his team’s eighth homer of the series. The slugging shortstop, acquired from Baltimore in July, also had a run-scoring double in the first. Ryan Madson (1-0) earned the win by getting the final two outs in the fifth to escape a bases-loaded jam.

Associated Press