BOSTON -- Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts had some special guests in town to see Boston open a crucial series against the American League East-leading New York Yankees.

They got to the park too late to see his three-run homer in the first inning.

So Bogaerts hit another -- a solo shot in the eighth to give the Red Sox a 19-3 lead and seal a historic pounding of their longtime rivals.

"The last at-bat I saw my mom there and I was like, 'I'm going to try,'" said Bogaerts, who also had his uncle and little league coaches in the stands. "I was happy I did. It will just be special having them here ... and having them enjoy watching me play and doing productive stuff for the team."

Bogaerts, born in Aruba, had four hits in all Thursday night as the Red Sox erupted for their biggest victory over the Yankees in the 117-year history of the rivalry.

Andrew Benintendi and Jackie Bradley Jr. had three hits apiece; Bradley, Michael Chavis and J.D. Martinez each had two of Boston's 10 doubles. Eight players had at least two RBIs for Boston, tying a major league record.

The Red Sox have won three of their first four in a stretch of 14 consecutive games against the Yankees and Tampa Bay, the two teams ahead of them in the division. But they remain 10 games behind New York, a half-game behind the Rays and one game behind Oakland in the race for the second AL wild card.

"It's a good time for everyone to be contributing," Bogaerts said. "If we keep it up for two months I think we'll be in very good shape, but it's hard to do."

In the worst start by a Yankees pitcher against the Red Sox, Masahiro Tanaka (7-6) allowed 12 runs on 12 hits and three walks in 3⅓ innings. It was the second-most earned runs ever allowed by a Yankees pitcher -- Carl Mays gave up 13 in a complete game against Cleveland in 1923.

Rick Porcello (9-7) had his problems, giving back two runs in the second after being spotted a 7-0 lead. Kyle Higashioka added a solo homer in the fifth to make it 12-3. But the Red Sox right-hander managed to finish six innings, allowing three runs on six hits while striking out five and walking one.

Boston has scored double-digit runs in each of Porcello's past five outings; he's the first major league pitcher to get that much support since 1896. He is 4-1 in his past six starts despite giving up 30 runs in 29 innings.

"It's been absolutely incredible," Porcello said. "It seems like the last three or four games I pitched we put up damn near 20 runs. Run support is huge. And when we're scoring like this, you do the best you can not to screw it up."

Tanaka, who had won four consecutive decisions, walked Mookie Betts and Rafael Devers to start the first before Bogaerts hit a 451-foot homer over the Green Monster and onto Lansdowne Street below.

Tanaka allowed three singles to load the bases and, with two out, Bradley and Betts hit consecutive two-run doubles to make it 7-0. Devers homered leading off the five-run fourth, when Boston chased Tanaka.

Yankees starters have allowed 40 runs over their past five games, something they hadn't done since 1912.

"It's been each guy this time through," manager Aaron Boone said. "So, it's been one hiccup for every one of the guys that's come in succession. Makes it difficult, but we've just got to dig in and see where we can make little improvements and expect that the next time out each guy will be sharper."

Stephen Tarpley wasn't much better, giving up three runs in the fifth and another in the sixth. Sandy Leon hit a two-run homer in the eighth, then Bogarts followed with his second of the night; this one failed to reach Lansdowne Street only because it clipped the billboard above the Monster.

STATS

Devers leads the majors with 31 RBIs in July and is the youngest Red Sox player with a 30-RBI month since Ted Williams in August 1939. ... The Red Sox have scored eight or more runs in four consecutive games against the Yankees for the first time since 1912, the year Fenway Park opened. ... The previous team with eight players with two or more RBIs was the Texas Rangers in a 30-3 victory over Baltimore in 2007. ... The Orioles scored 10 runs or more in five straight starts for Bill Hoffer in 1896.

ON THE FARM

Yankees prospect Deivi Garcia made his third start for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre as he bids for a big league call-up. The 20-year-old right-hander entered the game with 124 strikeouts in 76⅔ innings.

TRAINER'S ROOM

Yankees: OF Brett Gardner was placed on 10-day injured list with left knee inflammation, retroactive to Monday. ... Tarpley was recalled from Triple-A for the game and sent back afterward. ... OF Cameron Maybin (left calf strain) made a rehab appearance in Triple-A and went 4-for-5 with a homer and a double. Boone said Maybin is expected to play nine innings in the field Friday.

UP NEXT

Yankees: LHP James Paxton (5-5), who pitched eight innings of two-hit ball against Boston on April 16, striking out 12.

Red Sox: RHP Andrew Cashner (9-5) tries to earn his first victory with Boston since he was acquired from Baltimore in a trade. He's 2-5 with a 3.96 ERA in 10 starts against the Yankees.

AVONDALE, Ariz. – ISM Raceway will play host to the ARCA Menards Series and NASCAR K&N Pro Series West in 2020.

The ARCA Menards Series will visit ISM Raceway on March 6. The event will feature the best drivers from the ARCA Menards Series, with drivers from the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East and West also expected to compete.

The ARCA Menards Series was acquired by NASCAR in 2018 and 2020 will be the first season NASCAR has had direct control over the series.

The NASCAR K&N Pro Series West will compete at ISM Raceway on Nov. 7, with the event serving as the season finale and championship decider. The NASCAR Xfinity Series will also crown its series champion on the same day.

“I’m extremely pleased to add these grassroots races to our historic 2020 race season at ISM Raceway,” said Julie Giese, president of ISM Raceway. “We are committed to delivering to our ticket holders as much on-track action as possible during our race weekends and these races provide a great opportunity to showcase so many up-and-coming drivers in our sport.”

MOORESVILLE, N.C. – Sixteen-year-old Carson Hocevar has joined Jordan Anderson Racing to make his NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series debut during the Eldora Dirt Derby at Eldora Speedway on Aug. 1.

The relationship between Hocevar and Anderson was initially kickstarted earlier this summer between a mutual team partner – LTI Printing – in Michigan. The two began talking about Hocevar’s future goals in the sport, and a start in the Truck series was at the top of the list.

Hocevar has competed in 11 ARCA Menards Series events in the last two years, earning two poles and a best finish of third at Salem (Ind.) Speedway earlier this season.

“I’m very excited and thankful to make my NASCAR Truck debut at Eldora Speedway,” said Hocevar, who will drive the No. 3 Chevrolet Silverado sponsored by GMPartsNow and Precision Fleet Image. “Eldora is such a cool place with so much history. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been there a handful of times for the Prelude to the Dream, as well as the 4 Crown Nationals. I’ve raced at Little Eldora in a quarter midget, so to have the opportunity to jump over to the big track in a Silverado on the dirt is pretty humbling.

“I’m really thankful for the opportunity to be going there next week with Jordan Anderson Racing. It’s not every day that you get opportunities like this, so to be able to put something together with Jordan and his No. 3 team is really something I’m grateful for. GMPartsNow and Precision Fleet Image have been on our late models and ARCA cars, and they stepped up to help make my truck debut possible. Their support means so much to me and I hope we’re able to give them a good showing.”

Team owner Jordan Anderson echoed the excitement that Hocevar shared in talking about making his debut for the team.

“It’s been pretty amazing to see how our initial talks with Carson earlier this season have created the opportunity that he has in front of him with our team next week,” said Anderson. “He’s going to do a great job for us. His passion, excitement, and desire to succeed in the sport reminds me of myself when I was younger. I’m so honored to be able to provide a truck for him to make his first of many more NASCAR starts to come. We hope to continue growing the equipment and performance of our team every week to provide a home for drivers like Carson to hone their skills as they look to move up the ladder in our great sport.”

Arsenal's Mesut Ozil and his wife Amine Gulse were unharmed after being the targets of an attempted carjacking in London on Thursday, a source told ESPN FC.

The incident occurred when the two were pulling up to the home of Ozil's Arsenal teammate Sead Kolasinac, according to the source, when two assailants approached the car brandishing knives.

In video of the event, Kolasinac can be seen fending off the masked aggressors, with the source saying that Ozil stayed in the car to protect his wife.

Ozil then sped off and was followed by the attackers for about five minutes before arriving at Likya, a Turkish restaurant he likes to frequent in the nearby area of Golders Green, said the source. Employees of the restaurant emerged to help Ozil and confront the attackers.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: "It was reported that suspects on motorbikes had attempted to rob a man who was driving a car.

"The driver, along with his passenger, managed to get away unharmed and travelled to a restaurant in Golders Green, where they were spoken to by officers."

No arrests were made.

An Arsenal spokesperson said: "We have been in contact with both players and they are fine."

Information from the Associated Press was used in this story.

No matter when your "COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS ALMOST HERE!" alarm is set for -- when the preview magazines come out? When your team's head coach goes up to the dais for media days? -- it has, by now, gone off. The 2019 season is little more than a month away, and to further prepare ourselves, let's take one last look back at some of the primary statistical storylines of 2018 and what they might say about the season ahead.

1. The race to 200

Sure, the passer rating formula is all sorts of flawed. And sure, it seems like someone's setting a record every year. It is a product of the times, and the times are increasingly passer-friendly.

That said, the production we saw last year from Alabama's Tua Tagovailoa and Oklahoma's Kyler Murray was astounding, and passer rating enunciates that as well as anything else.

We still don't have a member of the 200 club -- producing a 200 passer rating for an entire season -- but we now have two 199ers. After Baker Mayfield set the single-season record with a 198.9 in 2017, both Tagovailoa and Murray ended up ahead. And the race was pretty fun to follow.

Six games into the season, Tua's stats were something I had never seen before. He was completing 75% of his passes at nearly 20 yards per completion. His passer rating was 60 points higher than Mayfield's had been in 2017; it was also better than the best six-game sample of Mayfield's career.

After dominant performances against Missouri (passer rating of 200.7) and Tennessee (199.7), though, the best defenses on the schedule showed up. He torched Auburn (214.7) but struggled against LSU (129.5), Mississippi State (138.5) and Georgia (a ghastly 92.3).

That offered Murray a way back into the race. After Tua's dreadful performance against Georgia, Murray's season rating had crept ever so slightly ahead. That final impression, plus an obvious rushing advantage (he had 1,110 non-sack rushing yards to Tagovailoa's 302), helped him in creeping ahead of Tagovailoa by 296 points in the Heisman voting.

Tagovailoa had a trump card in the ratings race, though: He got to play against the dreadful OU defense, and Murray didn't. Tua posted a downright disrespectful 236.7 rating against the Sooners in the College Football Playoff semifinals, while Murray managed only a 139.1 against Bama's D. That knocked Tua back over 200 for the season and knocked Murray just below.

Tua's rating remained at 200 heading into the fourth quarter of Bama's national title game loss, but he ended up with basically one incompletion too many. The roster of 200ers remains empty.

Tua's back, though, and he has got his top four receiving targets back as well. The chase begins again.

2. UConn and the wrong kind of history

This has not been the best year for Connecticut football. First, the Huskies went 1-11 in coach Randy Edsall's second year in charge during this tour of duty. Their lone win was a last-minute nail-biter over FCS team Rhode Island. To give his offensive coordinator a raise, Edsall had to pay it out of his own pocket. A couple of weeks later, said OC left for another job. Then the school announced it was leaving the American Athletic Conference for the Big East, meaning its football program would be unanchored and independent within the FBS universe. A tough job seemingly just got tougher.

On the bright side, however, the Huskies did make history on the football field. The wrong kind of history, sure, but spectacular all the same.

The 2018 UConn defense took the field for 138 drives, not including 15 that were ended by either the halftime or end-of-game buzzer. Of those 138 ...

• 28 ended in a punt. No other FBS team forced fewer than 37.
• 11 resulted in a turnover. Only four teams forced fewer.
• 81 resulted in a touchdown. Only two other teams allowed more than 68 -- Louisville (71) and Oregon State (76). Nearly three touchdowns to every punt!

Including 14 field goals, an incredible 95 of 138 drives (69%) against the UConn defense resulted in points. Opponents scored 605 points in all, 50.4 per game. The Huskies allowed at least 49 points in 10 of 12 games, at least 7.6 yards per play in 11, and at least 516 total yards in 11. If you got a chance to watch this defense play, you were witnessing something truly special.

Let's put it this way: Oklahoma's offense averaged 8.6 yards per play and 570.3 yards and 48.4 points per game. But really, it was at any point only the second-best offense in the country behind Whoever Was Playing UConn That Week.

Edsall mercifully fired defensive coordinator Billy Crocker and replaced him with former UCLA DC and Alabama analyst Lou Spanos. At the very least, this year's two-deep won't be quite as young -- 16 of UConn's 19 leading tacklers were freshmen or sophomores.

3. A return to chaos? Please?

According to Sports Media Watch, here were the 15 most-watched games of the 2018 college football season:

1. Clemson 44, Alabama 16 (CFP title game) -- 25.3 million viewers (including streaming)
2. Alabama 45, Oklahoma 34 (CFP semifinals) -- 19.1 million
3. Alabama 35, Georgia 28 (SEC championship) -- 17.5 million
4. Clemson 30, Notre Dame 3 (CFP semifinals) -- 16.8 million
5. Ohio State 28, Washington 23 (Rose Bowl) -- 16.8 million
6. Texas 28, Georgia 21 (Sugar Bowl) -- 13.3 million
7. Ohio State 62, Michigan 39 -- 13.2 million
8. Alabama 29, LSU 0 -- 11.5 million
9. Oklahoma 39, Texas 27 (Big 12 championship) -- 10.2 million
10. Ohio State 27, Penn State 26 -- 9.1 million
11. Alabama 52, Auburn 21 -- 9.1 million
12. Ohio State 45, Northwestern 24 (Big Ten championship) -- 8.7 million
13. LSU 40, UCF 32 (Fiesta Bowl) -- 8.5 million
14. Florida 41, Michigan 15 (Peach Bowl) -- 8.4 million
15. Army 17, Navy 10 -- 8.1 million

That's about five or six truly good games and a whole bunch of blowouts. I'm not going to say that's symbolic ... but it isn't entirely non-symbolic. You can always find fun and enjoyment in college football if you try, but unless you were a Clemson fan, you maybe had to try a little bit harder to enjoy yourself last season. There's always wackiness beneath the surface, but the national title race, the most direct source of entertainment, wasn't all that entertaining.

Only four teams ranked in the top two in the AP poll at some point during the season: Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State and Georgia. For reference, seven did in 2017, and there was an average of 5.8 over the past six years. Not since 2009, when Alabama, Texas and Florida took over as the top three in Week 4 and squatted on those spots for the rest of the regular season (Alabama and Texas played for the title), have we had such a by-the-book title race.

By bringing this up, am I attempting to jinx us into a wild title race this fall? You betcha. Remember the amazing 2007 season, which featured a decade's worth of surprise contenders and plot twists? That year featured 11 different top-two teams. The 2008 season featured nine. I'd settle for seven this year.

4. A maiden CFP voyage

That said, we did at least add a new member to the list of teams that have played in the College Football Playoff: Notre Dame.

Total CFP bids to date:
• 5: Alabama
• 4: Clemson
• 3: Oklahoma
• 2: Ohio State
• 1: Florida State, Georgia, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Oregon, Washington

Alabama and Clemson alone have taken 45% (9 of 20) of the CFP bids to data. If 2019 goes according to expectations, it'll be 46% (11 of 24) in about five months.

5. Rise of the fourth-down conversion?

The 2018 Army Black Knights found a football cheat code last season: They stole downs. Hopefully other teams take notice.

Jeff Monken's squad not only went for it 36 times on fourth down last season (fourth most in FBS), it also converted 31 of them. That's more conversions than anyone has managed in at least 15 years, and it's an almost unmatchable success rate, too. (For all we know, it might be unsustainable, too. We'll see.) They used third downs often just to set up fourth-and-short, then they converted. Opponents first got frustrated, then got tired.

This was clearly a winning strategy. Army won 11 games for the first time in school history -- a year after winning 10 games for only the second time, no less.

Now to see if others follow Army's lead. Obviously, with their option offense, the Black Knights are uniquely equipped to both create and convert fourth-and-shorts. But this strategy might catch on -- 19 teams attempted at least 30 fourth-down conversions last year, after only 10 did in 2017.

6. Kansas was ... lucky?

One of the concepts I've played with a lot in my time as a writer/stats guy has been turnovers luck. We understand that, with a pointy ball and a reliance on males 18 to 22 years old (aka the least stable members of the population), college football is going to be defined by bounces and breaks sometimes, but attempting to strip that out has always been, to me, an essential part of creating a predictive system such as S&P+.

Here are the two tenets to how I measure turnover luck:

1. Over time, your fumble recovery rate regresses to the mean. If you recovered 70% of all fumbles in a given year -- and at least one team usually does -- it's going to have a massive effect on your performance, and it's probably going to be a lot closer to 50% the next year. Same goes for the team that was at 30%.

2. This one's a little bit funkier for some people: On average, about 21-22% of your passes defensed (interceptions plus breakups) will result in interceptions. In a given year, that number could be 8% for a given team, or it could be 35%. That could be the difference of five or six interceptions in a given year.

With those two things in mind, I create an "expected turnovers" measure based on what your TO margin would have been with proper fumble recovery and passes defensed ratios, and I compare your actual turnover margin to it. The difference is what I record as turnovers luck.

• The most unlucky college football teams in 2018: Florida State (plus-2.2 expected turnover margin, minus-11 actual turnover margin, for a difference of minus-13.2 turnovers), UTEP (minus-10.5), Rutgers (minus-10.1), Tulane (minus-9.7), and Louisiana-Monroe (minus-8.9). For as bad as FSU's offensive line was last season -- and it was horrible -- a proper number of good breaks probably results in an extra win or two for the Noles.
• The most lucky college football teams in 2018: Kansas (plus-16.2!), Florida International (plus-9.9), Maryland (plus-9.7), Arizona State (plus-9.6), and Georgia Tech (plus-8.8).

Poor 3-9, 100th-in-S&P+ Kansas was ... LUCKY. The Jayhawks recovered 21 of 35 fumbles in 2018 (60%), but the biggest difference was in the passes defensed category. They defensed 45 passes, and their opponents defensed 48, but they ended up with 16 interceptions to their opponents' four. Their expected turnover margin was about minus-0.2. Their actual turnover margin was plus-16. That's almost guaranteed to regress in Les Miles' first season.

7. Louisville's spectacular collapse

Bobby Petrino's final Louisville Cardinals team managed something rare: a triple-digit drop. In a single season, the Cardinals managed to fall from second to 102nd in offensive S&P+. Only one other team had managed to do that in what I'll call the S&P+ era (2005-18).

Largest single-year S&P+ drop for an offense or defense:
1. 2009 Rice offense (101 spots, from 11th to 112th)
2. 2018 Louisville offense (100 spots, from second to 102nd)
3. 2009 Ball State offense (98 spots, from 15th to 113th)
4. 2013 Louisiana Tech offense (97 spots, from 18th to 115th)
5. 2007 Notre Dame offense (97 spots, from 18th to 115th)
6. 2017 UCLA defense (94 spots, from 10th to 104th)
7. 2008 Kentucky offense (88 spots, from 15th to 103rd)
8. 2011 Kentucky offense (86 spots, from 27th to 113th)
9. 2006 Iowa State defense (84 spots, from 15th to 99th)
10. 2015 UCF defense (83 spots, from 22nd to 105th)

David Bailiff's 2010 Rice offense managed to rebound from 112th to 80th the season after their amazing collapse. Louisville should be happy with something similar in Scott Satterfield's first year in charge.

8. All hail Braden Mann

Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher and offensive coordinator Darrell Dickey fielded an excellent attack in their first year in College Station. The Aggies improved from 38th to 10th in offensive S&P+ as Trayveon Williams rushed for 1,760 yards and Kellen Mond threw for 3,107. Their best offensive weapon, however, might have been punter and senior-to-be Braden Mann, who averaged a stunning 51 yards per kick. For however many yards A&M gained in a given drive before punting, Mann basically tacked on an extra first down to the end of it.

Mann's season didn't quite have the finesse that Texas' Michael Dickson managed in 2017 -- Dickson averaged 47.4 yards, but with 33 fair catches and 41 punts downed inside the 20 (Mann had 11 and 13, respectively). But blunt force is fun sometimes, and 51 yards was the highest average on record.

9. Can Jarrett Guarantano get some help?

ESPN's David Hale recently named Tennessee's Guarantano as maybe the leading candidate for 2019 breakout player of the year. To back up his case, he compared Guarantano's numbers to that of Oregon's Justin Herbert, one of the established darlings for this coming season.

Who had the better season?

Player A: 59.4% completions, 7.8 yards per pass, 3.4-1 TD-to-INT ratio, 35% conversions on third-down throws

Player B: 62.2% completions, 7.8 yards per pass, 4-1 TD-to-INT ratio, 41% conversions on third-down throws

Pretty close, but you'd probably give the nod to Player B, right? Well, once again, that's Guarantano. The other player is Herbert, widely considered one of the top QB prospects in college football.

If you're still unconvinced, maybe this will sway you?

Guarantano pulled off Herbert-esque numbers despite living life with one of the worst run games imaginable.

Not even including sacks, 32.6% of Tennessee's rushes were stuffed at or behind the line, worst in FBS. Only 41% of the carries gained at least 4 yards (119th). The Vols ran the ball constantly (and predictably) on early downs -- their run rate was 64% on standard downs, nearly 5 percentage points higher than the national average -- and all it produced were lots of second-and-11s and heavy pass rushes when Guarantano was looking to make up ground.

When he had time to pass, though, he did well. His passer rating was 152.0 on second downs and 150.4 on third downs with between 4 and 9 yards to go.

New offensive coordinator Jim Chaney is one of the better coaches in America when it comes to crafting a system around the standout talent he has at his disposal. Sometimes that means a run-heavy approach, and sometimes it means a lot of passing. With Guarantano and almost his entire receiving corps back (including a hell of a wideout trio in Marquez Callaway, Jauan Jennings and Josh Palmer), I'm guessing Chaney leans toward the latter.

10. Every week, a new Minnesota

In my Big Ten West preview, I noted just how ridiculously up-and-down PJ Fleck's 2018 Minnesota Golden Gophers were. They beat Purdue, Wisconsin and Georgia Tech (bowl teams, all) by a combined 77 points and lost to Maryland, Nebraska and Illinois (13 combined wins) by 78. They won their first three games and four of their last six but lost four straight by at least 16 points each in between.

They even befuddled Vegas. Minnesota overachieved by at least 14 points against the spread five times and underachieved by at least 10 points five times.

In all, the spread was off by at least three touchdowns, one way or the other, six times in 13 games. It was off by 33.5 points in the loss to Illinois and by 43.5 points in the win over Purdue. On average, Vegas was off by 20.1 points per game.

Largest average absolute error, Vegas vs. team outcomes: Minnesota (20.1 points per game), Duke (19.5), Old Dominion (18.9), Wake Forest (18.8), Purdue (18.5), Army (18.2), Louisville (18.0), Virginia Tech (17.8), East Carolina (17.7), North Texas (17.3).

The Gophers were one of the youngest teams in the country, which would explain a decent amount of the volatility. But a pro tip for you: Maybe avoid betting on Minnesota games for a bit until we see how volatile things are, or aren't, this fall. And since there were four ACC teams also on the above list, maybe avoid that entire league, too.

The Seattle Mariners announced that Ichiro Suzuki, who retired in March after playing his final two games in Japan, will receive the Franchise Achievement Award.

The award will be presented during a pregame ceremony on Saturday, Sept. 14, before a game against the Chicago White Sox.

The great left-handed hitter, a 10-time American League All-Star, Suzuki had 10 consecutive seasons of at least 200 hits, breaking the major league record with 262 in 2004.

During that period, he got 2,533 of his 3,089 major league hits playing for the Mariners.

Suzuki, 45, began his pro career in Japan in 1992. The Mariners signed him before the 2001 season.

He played 18-plus in the major leagues for Seattle, the New York Yankees and Miami Marlins. The Mariners traded him to the Yankees on July 23, 2012, and he played 2½ seasons there in a backup role before moving on for three seasons with the Marlins. He returned to Seattle to end his career where it started.

LOS ANGELES -- The Freeway Series was about to begin, and Dave Roberts, manager for the Los Angeles Dodgers, spoke vaguely about the challenges of facing "the best player in the game," a label that has become so synonymous with Mike Trout that his name isn't required for clarification. The Dodgers' TV reporter, Alanna Rizzo, playfully stated that Cody Bellinger -- MVP favorite in the National League, breakthrough star at the age of 24 -- didn't play for the visiting Los Angeles Angels. Roberts laughed.

"I hear you," he said, "but you're talking about longevity. And Trout has done it so consistently for so long."

Later that night, Trout recorded an out at home plate with a throw that nearly reached 100 mph and blasted a towering home run that landed in the left-field upper deck, leading his Angels to the first of back-to-back victories against the crosstown Dodgers.

Trout's 6.6 FanGraphs wins above replacement leads the majors, topping that of Bellinger (6.1) and Christian Yelich (5.9) and far ahead of the next American League player, Boston Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts (4.7). With 64% of the season complete, Trout leads the AL in OPS (1.105), home runs (33), RBIs (81) and walks (80), all of which are on pace to set career highs.

In a year when Bellinger is aiming for the Triple Crown and Yelich is chasing his second straight NL MVP, Trout remains the sport's undisputed overlord.

He is the AL MVP front-runner by a wide margin, even though his Angels sit 11½ games back in their division.

"No doubt," teammate Kole Calhoun said. "But I don't have a vote. I mean, he's finished second a couple times when I thought he should've been the MVP. He's the best player I've ever seen. Everybody's astonished he can keep doing it and keep doing it, but I've stopped being impressed. He's the best in the world, and he lives up to it every day."

Lately, the production has come in the wake of tragedy.

At the start of July, Trout lost a teammate and a close friend when Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs was found dead in his Texas hotel room. The Angels have somehow rallied ever since, winning 12 of 18 to move a season-best five games above .500, and Trout has helped carry them with a .291/.397/.945 slash line. His 11 July home runs, in only 15 games, are two shy of the Angels' record for a month.

Angels manager Brad Ausmus was asked how Trout can maintain such an elite level in the midst of such sobering circumstances.

He shrugged.

"I don't know," Ausmus said. "I guess we all kind of expect it from him at this point."

Skaggs was noticeably at the forefront of Trout's mind after Tuesday's game. He laughed about how Skaggs would have given him a hard time for bragging about his 98.6 mph throw, which stood as the third-hardest outfield assist this season. And he brought up how his home run traveled 454 feet, Skaggs' number forward and backward, just as one did on the night of an inspired no-hitter.

"It's tough," said Trout, who also lost his brother-in-law, Aaron Cox, last August. "It's been tough."

Trout is slashing .296/.443/.662 while on pace for 52 home runs, 127 RBIs and 126 walks. His contact rate (84.4%), chase rate (17.8%) and strikeout rate (17.5%) are on pace to be the best of his career. Barring the unforeseen, he will finish within the top two in MVP voting for the seventh time, already only two shy of Barry Bonds for the major league record. At this rate, he will capture his third MVP trophy before his age-28 season, a feat accomplished only by Stan Musial.

"He's the most talented hitter on the planet," Ausmus said. "No offense to Cody Bellinger, who's also very talented."