Fausto Carmona pitched eight innings against the Boston Red Sox, the team that blasted him when he flopped as a closer last season, leading the Cleveland Indians to a 1-0 victory in the American League on Wednesday.
Carmona (13-4) improved to 5-0 this month, allowing four singles and raising his scoreless innings streak to 18.
Josh Beckett (13-4) lost on the road for the first time since last September as the Red Sox had a five-game winning streak snapped. Beckett allowed four hits in his fourth career complete game.
Carmona had not faced the Red Sox since blowing consecutive save chances at Fenway Park last season, all but finishing the Indians' experiment with him as the closer.
Joe Borowski worked the ninth for his 29th save.
Franklin Gutierrez hit a home run in the third as the Indians matched Boston's 1-0 victory on Tuesday.
Blue Jays 13, Twins 1
At Toronto, Gregg Zaun homered and drove in four runs, and Toronto tied a franchise record with an 11-run sixth inning in completing a three-game sweep.
Toronto has won a season-high five straight while Minnesota has lost four in a row, matching a season worst.
Yankees 7, Royals 1
At Kansas City, Missouri, Alex Rodriguez hit his 499th homer, and Melky Cabrera and Hideki Matsui also went deep as New York won its sixth straight.
Seeking to become the youngest player to reach 500 homers, Rodriguez connected in the eighth inning off Gil Meche.
With its 11th win in 13 games, New York closed within 6.5 games of AL East-leading Boston. The Yankees, who trailed by 14.5 games in late May, had not been this close since trailing Boston by six games before play on May 10.
Angels 7, Athletics 6
At Anaheim, California, Maicer Izturis' RBI single in the bottom of the ninth gave Los Angeles the win after Francisco Rodriguez blew a three-run lead in the top half of the inning.
Orioles 6, Devil Rays 1
At Baltimore, Erik Bedard allowed one run in six innings to earn his sixth straight victory, and Tampa Bay had its losing streak extended to five games.
Tigers 13, White Sox 9
At Chicago, Ryan Raburn, making an emergency start after Gary Sheffield was scratched from the lineup with a shoulder injury, hit two homers and drove in seven runs for Detroit.
Raburn, homered in the third and fourth innings and had an RBI double during Detroit's five-run fifth. He added two more runs on a single in the ninth. The 26-year-old Raburn is 10-for-20 in nine games, with three homers and 10 RBIs.
Carlos Lee hit a solo home run in the seventh inning to lift the Houston Astros to a 2-1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League on Wednesday.
Brad Lidge pitched a perfect ninth for his fifth save in eight chances. The win gave the struggling Astros their second straight series victory.
Eric Munson put Houston ahead with a home run in the third inning.
Former Astro Jeff Kent tied the game with a homer in the seventh. He has reached safely in 36 straight games, the longest streak in the majors this season.
Houston starter Matt Albers, filling in for injured ace Roy Oswalt, allowed three hits and no runs in five innings.
D.J. Houlton (0-2) pitched two innings and the only hit he allowed was Lee's home run.
Dodgers starter Derek Lowe faced one batter in the fifth before leaving the game. He allowed one run and three hits with three strikeouts in four innings.
Mets 6, Pirates 3
At New York, Tom Glavine pitched six innings to earn career win No. 299 and Paul Lo Duca drove in four runs to lead New York.
Marlon Anderson had a sacrifice fly for New York. He was inserted into the lineup when All-Star center fielder Carlos Beltran strained an abdominal muscle during batting practice.
Glavine (9-6) allowed three runs and eight hits. He is expected to go for No. 300 on Tuesday in Milwaukee.
Aaron Heilman pitched two scoreless innings and Billy Wagner got three outs for his 23rd save.
Jason Bay homered for the third time in two days and Freddy Sanchez had two hits for the Pirates, who have lost six straight on the road and 10 of 11 overall.
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