The Philadelphia Phillies are holding a pair of aces, and they hope a win is in the cards on Sunday afternoon when they conclude their three-game series with the visiting Cleveland Guardians.

The Phillies’ starting pitching has been on full display in the first two games of the weekend series. Cristopher Sanchez logged eight scoreless innings Friday in his team’s 1-0 defeat, and Zack Wheeler blanked the Guardians over six frames in a 3-0 triumph Saturday.

“I think everybody feeds off each other, you know?” Wheeler said. “You always try to beat the guy the day before you. He’s pretty hard to beat right now, but you’ve got to go out there and try. … Whatever run he’s been on, it’s pretty special. It’s almost unmatchable.”

Wheeler has a 1.67 ERA this season, while Sanchez’s mark is even better at 1.62. Sanchez also is riding a scoreless streak of 37 2/3 innings.

The Guardians managed only three hits against Wheeler and a trio of relievers in Saturday’s setback. One hit was by impressive rookie Travis Bazzana, who doubled against hard-throwing closer Jhoan Duran in the ninth inning.

“Just felt like it was a good time for Travis to get an opportunity tonight,” Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt said Saturday regarding Bazzana batting in the leadoff position. “Don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. We’re trying to look to see how this group fits together the best.”

Saturday’s outcome snapped the Guardians’ seven-game winning streak. It also halted the Phillies’ three-game skid.

Philadelphia hopes to begin a new winning streak with rookie Andrew Painter (1-4, 5.77 ERA) on the mound on Sunday.

The 23-year-old right-hander is coming off back-to-back productive outings. Most recently, he yielded two runs in a career-high six innings Monday in a no-decision against the Cincinnati Reds. Philadelphia won 5-4.

“He looks really good,” Phillies second baseman Bryson Stott said. “He’s got elite stuff, and I think once he knows that, I think you’ll see a lot more outings like this.”

Stott has 20 RBIs in 21 games this month, including a two-run single to spark Philadelphia in Saturday’s victory. He’ll hope to continue that run as he faces Cleveland left-hander Parker Messick (5-1, 2.45 ERA) in the series finale.

Messick has walked three batters in each of his last two starts, although he limited the damage in each outing. He gave up three runs — two earned — in five innings Tuesday against the Detroit Tigers in a game the Guardians won 4-3.

“Probably some of the worst command we’ve seen Parker have, but for him to be able to keep getting outs and keep them off the board the way he did, I thought he and (catcher Austin Hedges) worked excellent together,” Vogt said after the game. “Just the command we saw from Parker tonight wasn’t what we’re used to.”

Messick and Painter both will face the opponent for the first time in their careers.

Bryce Harper had three hits and scored twice for the Phillies on Saturday. But Kyle Schwarber struck out three times, giving him 11 punchouts in his last three games.

For Cleveland, Kyle Manzardo will look to bounce back after going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts Saturday. On Friday night, Manzardo hit a pinch-hit homer off Duran in the ninth to score the game’s only run.

–Field Level Media

A strong pitching matchup is on tap as the visiting Minnesota Twins look to complete a three-game series sweep of the Boston Red Sox on Sunday afternoon.

Standing in the way of Bailey Ober (5-2, 3.63 ERA) and the Twins is fellow right-hander Sonny Gray (5-1, 2.93), who has allowed just two runs and struck out 17 batters in 17 innings across a three-game win streak.

Gray pitched six innings of one-run ball with a season-high nine strikeouts last Monday against the Kansas City Royals. It was his second straight outing of that length.

“The same as we’ve seen (in) the last two outings,” Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy said of Gray’s recent stretch. “Just in complete control, in and out, up, down, changing speeds. Had a nice front-door sinker, running it back on lefties, catching the inside corner. He was sensational.”

Gray, who is 3-6 with a 5.63 ERA in 11 career starts against Minnesota, again will look to play the role of stopper for his team after the Twins started the series with 8-6 and 4-2 victories.

On Saturday, the Red Sox were limited to five hits, but a ninth-inning rally after loading the bases was cut short. It was the 22nd game this season in which they were held to two or fewer runs (2-20).

“We gave ourselves chances and had a big, big shot there,” Tracy said.

Ceddanne Rafaela had Boston’s lone RBI hit on a double in the fourth inning.

Willson Contreras was 2-for-3 and scored a run, but he also was at the center of a minor benches-clearing altercation after he slowed up before running into Twins catcher and former Chicago Cubs teammate Victor Caratini covering the plate.

“It wasn’t anything malicious or anything at all, it was not bad intention,” Contreras said. “For him to get that mad at that was kind of surprising. For the benches to empty, that was surprising as well.”

The Twins claimed the series and won their third straight on Saturday. Trevor Larnach’s 4-for-5 day with a double and two runs helped make a winner out of Taj Bradley, who returned from the injured list to pitch five innings of one-run ball.

The victories have come in different ways for Minnesota. It scored five unanswered runs to finish Friday’s series opener before a two-run first inning started things off on Saturday. The latter game featured a 12-hit performance, with four players posting multiple hits.

“We took (the Fenway Park crowd) out until the end and then they got a little rowdy like they do here, but overall, our guys continued to battle in another really good team victory,” Twins manager Derek Shelton said.

Like Gray, Ober is in the midst of a solid run of his own. He has won back-to-back and three of his last four starts.

After holding the Miami Marlins to two hits in a complete-game shutout on May 12, Ober grinded through five innings of three-run ball to beat the Milwaukee Brewers in his most recent outing last Sunday.

“I’m not always going to have my stuff like I did last game, where I’m able to locate everything, and I know that,” Ober said of his last outing. “I feel like I did enough for the team to stay in it.”

Ober is 2-2 with a 2.48 ERA in five career starts against the Red Sox. He earned his second straight win in the series back on April 13, striking out seven through a six-inning start.

–Field Level Media

The visiting Los Angels Dodgers hope Yoshinobu Yamamoto can repeat his postseason performance against the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday afternoon in the finale of a three-game series between first-place teams.

Yamamoto (3-4, 3.32 ERA), who threw a complete-game three-hitter against the Brewers in last year’s National League Championship Series, will oppose fellow right-hander Brandon Sproat (1-2, 5.75) on Sunday.

The Dodgers evened the current series with an 11-3 victory Saturday behind Teoscar Hernandez’s three-run homer and six RBIs, as well as a record-setting performance by the bullpen.

Starter Roki Sasaki allowed three runs in the first but left after five innings with a 4-3 lead. Relievers Alex Vesia, Kyle Hurt, Tanner Scott and Jonathan Hernandez each followed with a scoreless inning to extend the bullpen’s scoreless streak to 36 innings over 11 games, the team’s longest in the modern era (since 1901), surpassing the 33 innings set in 1998.

“They’re good,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said afterward about the Dodgers’ bullpen. “They throw on the edges, they throw effective pitches, they have more than one pitch for a strike … credit them. Their bullpen’s really, really solid right now.”

The Dodgers’ streak is the longest since the Cleveland bullpen threw 39 consecutive scoreless innings in 2017. The Kansas City Athletics hold the bullpen record with 44 consecutive scoreless innings in 1966.

The Dodgers are 8-2 in their last 10 games and lead the NL West. They swept the Brewers in the NLCS last season but snapped a nine-game regular-season skid to Milwaukee. The Brewers, who lead the NL Central, are 12-3 over their last 15 games.

Yamamoto has lost three of his last five starts but pitched better than his record indicates. He lost his last time out despite allowing just one run and three hits over seven innings in a 1-0 setback at San Diego on Monday.

“The last few haven’t been great per his standards, but tonight I thought was a really good one,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said following Yamamoto’s last start. “The win-loss, you know you’ve got to score runs from him, too.”

Seven of the 21 earned runs Yamamoto has given up have come in the first inning. The Brewers scored three runs in the first in each of the first two games of the series.

Yamamoto will face the Brewers for the first time since his complete game three-hitter in the Dodgers’ 5-1 victory in Game 2 of the NLCS last season. He surrendered a leadoff homer to Jackson Chourio in the first inning, then dominated the rest of the way, striking out seven and walking one in an 111-pitch outing.

On Saturday, the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani extended his hitting streak to nine games with a seventh-inning single. He is batting .457 over that stretch with two homers, four doubles, a triple and 12 RBIs.

Sproat came up one out short of the victory his last time out, allowing three runs on three hits in 4 2/3 innings in a 9-3 win over the Chicago Cubs on Monday. He struck out five but walked three and hit a batter.

He will face the Dodgers for the first time in his career.

Brewers pitchers walked 11 batters on Saturday, including Freddie Freeman four times, their most since issuing 11 walks against the Cubs in 2016.

–Field Level Media