National League
Woody Williams won his sixth straight decision, Albert Pujols and Larry Walker homered, and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Atlanta Braves 4-1 Friday night in the series opener between division leaders.
Williams (9-6) allowed only three hits and one run in seven innings as St. Louis stretched its NL Central lead over the Chicago Cubs to 13 1/2 games. He has six wins and five no-decisions since his last loss June 8 at Chicago against the Cubs.
Williams allowed just one baserunner to advance past second base -- Chipper Jones' leadoff homer in the seventh inning -- and walked just two batters.
Giants 16, Phillies 6
In Philadelphia, J.T. Snow homered three times, scored a career-best five runs and knocked in four, and Barry Bonds hit career homer No. 689, leading San Francisco to rout of Philadelphia.
It was Snow's first career three-homer game. He hit a two-run shot off Brett Myers (7-9) in the first inning, a solo shot in the fifth and another solo homer in the seventh -- both off Amaury Telemaco -- giving him nine home runs this season. Snow also walked twice.
A.J. Pierzynski homered and drove in five runs, and Marquis Grissom also homered for the Giants, who moved one game behind Chicago in the NL wild-card race.
Bonds went 2-for-2, scored three runs, had two RBIs and was walked three times, twice intentionally. The two intentional walks gave him a major-league high 86 on the season. It helped the Giants break their two-year old major-league record of intentional walks in a season with 104.
Dodgers 8, Cubs 1
In Chicago, Odalis Perez outpitched Greg Maddux before Steve Finley helped the streaking Dodgers pull away at the end to beat the Cubs.
Leading 2-1, the Dodgers scored six times in the ninth inning, taking advantage of Chicago's wilting bullpen and the Cubs' wobbly defense. The NL West leaders won for the 28th time in 37 games.
American League
Ben Broussard homered for the second straight night and the Cleveland Indians pulled within two games of the first-place Minnesota Twins with an 8-2 win Friday night.
The Indians have won five straight and nine of 10, gaining six games on the Twins in nine days. Minnesota has lost seven of nine.
Scott Elarton (2-2) had his finest start of the season and Cleveland roughed up Minnesota early in the first of 13 games remaining between the two clubs. He went seven innings, allowing two runs on seven hits and a walk with four strikeouts.
The Indians scored five times in the first inning on Victor Martinez's two-run double and Broussard's 455-foot, three-run homer. Broussard, who hit a pinch-hit grand slam Thursday, made his second curtain call in as many nights.
White Sox 8, Red Sox 7
In Boston, Aaron Rowand hit two home runs, the second a tiebreaking shot in the seventh inning, to lead the Chicago past Boston.
Rowand had his first career two-homer game, and his four RBIs tied a career high. Jose Contreras (10-5) earned his first career victory against the Red Sox since being acquired from the New York Yankees.
Manny Ramirez and Kevin Millar homered for Boston, which had its three-game winning streak ended. Tim Wakefield (8-7) gave up a one-out homer in the seventh to Rowand to give the White Sox a 5-4 lead.
David Ortiz's sacrifice fly in the seventh scored Johnny Damon to cut the White Sox's lead to 6-5, and Ben Davis singled in two runs in the eighth to give Chicago an 8-5 lead.
The Red Sox loaded the bases in the bottom of the eighth with two outs, but Shingo Takatsu struck out pinch-hitter Jason Varitek.
Takatsu issued a one-out walk to Ortiz in the ninth and Millar followed with a two-run homer before Takatsu got the last two outs for his 11th save in 12 chances.
Yankees 11, Mariners 3
In Seattle, Ruben Sierra hit a grand slam and drove in five runs, and Jon Lieber pitched eight strong innings. Bernie Williams added a three-run homer and Jorge Posada hit a solo shot for the Yankees, who lead the majors with 178 homers.
Despite playing without All-Star third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who missed his first game of the season with the flu, the Yankees routed the last-place Mariners and improved to a season-high 33 games over .500 at 74-41.
Lieber (9-7) won his second straight start. He gave up three runs and seven hits, struck out four and walked none.
Ron Villone (4-3), making his seventh start of the season, gave up eight runs on 10 hits.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier