>>Molina's Double Lifts Cardinals Past Reds
A game with playoff implications turned on a missed call Thursday night when Yadier Molina got credit for a winning double with two outs in the ninth inning to beat the Reds 4-3.
Matt Carpenter drew a one-out walk from Blake Wood (6-5). With two outs, Molina's one-hop hit clearly bounced off a sign above the left-field wall and caromed back into play.
Carpenter kept running and scored from first. It should have been a ground-rule double, putting Carpenter on third. Instead, the Cardinals celebrated.
Reds manager Bryan Price ran after the umpires to argue. He said he was later told he had 10 seconds after Carpenter scored to appeal for a replay.
Cincinnati scored single runs in the eighth and ninth. Pinch hitter Scott Schebler had a two-out, two-strike infield single to make it 3-all.
St. Louis rookie Alex Reyes, in his fifth major league start, gave up one run on seven hits in a 99-pitch outing. He struck out six and walked two.
Reyes, who lowered his ERA to 1.57, also drove in the go-ahead run with a groundout.
Molina and Jedd Gyorko hit solo homers for the Cardinals.
Seung Hwan Oh (6-3) wound up with the win after blowing his third save in 21 tries this season.
The Cardinals are one game behind San Francisco for the second NL wild-card spot. Each team has three games left.
Carlos Martinez (15-9, 3.15) will oppose Pittsburgh RHP Tyler Glasnow (0-1, 4.91) in the opener of a three-game set on Friday at Busch Stadium. Martinez is 3-5 with a 4.01 ERA lifetime against Pittsburgh. Glasnow will be making his fourth start of the season.
>>Cubs, Pirates Rained Out After Tie
The Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates played to the first tie game in the major leagues since 2005 when rain forced the teams to stop in the sixth inning Thursday night with the score 1-all.
The Cubs and Pirates aren't scheduled to play again this season, and the game won't be made up because it doesn't affect postseason positioning. So instead of becoming a suspended game, the stats count and it was declared a tie - the first since Houston and Cincinnati went seven innings on June 30, 2005, before rain halted them.
Willson Contreras had two hits and scored for the NL Central champion Cubs, who have already clinched the best record in the majors. Josh Bell hit a sacrifice fly for the Pirates.
The game was called after a delay of 1 hour, 23 minutes.
>>Rays Top White Sox
Chris Archer overcame a shaky seventh inning to avoid becoming the majors' first 20-game loser since 2003 and lead the Tampa Bay Rays past the Chicago White Sox, 5-3 on Thursday night.
Archer (9-19) allowed three runs and six hits in 6 2/3 innings to help the Rays snap a six-game skid and leave Detroit's Mike Maroth as the only pitcher to lose 20 games this century.
Mikie Mahtook hit a solo homer in the fourth off Jose Quintana (13-12) and doubled and scored in a three-run seventh off Chicago's shaky bullpen.
Quintana allowed two runs and five hits over six innings for the White Sox, whose five-game winning streak ended despite Carlos Sanchez's two-out, two-run homer in the seventh.
Chicago clinched its fourth consecutive losing season under manager Robin Ventura, whose future with the team is uncertain.
