The Atlanta Braves, fighting for a National League playoff berth, made major moves on Tuesday at the Major League Baseball trade deadline to bolster themselves for a title run.
The Braves obtained Kansas City Royals closer Octavio Dotel for righthander Kyle Davies and finalized a deal to sign highly prized first baseman Mark Teixeira from Texas, along with southpaw relief pitcher Ron Mahay.
Atlanta also obtained southpaw pitcher Royce Ring from San Diego in exchange for southpaws Wil Ledezma and Will Startup.
PHOTO: AP
"It makes us a World Series favorite, obviously, come on," Braves righthanded pitcher Tim Hudson said.
Dotel is 2-1 with 11 saves and a 3.91 earned-run average in 24 appearances this season and will bolster a bullpen of relievers betrayed at times by inconsistent efforts from closer Bob Wickman and key set-up man Rafael Soriano.
Teixeira, a 27-year-old switch-hitter, is batting .297 with 13 home runs and 49 runs batted in over 78 games. He was sidelined by a strained left quadriceps muscle from June 9 to July 8, ending a run of 507 consecutive games played.
"It's good for us," Braves shortstop Edgar Renteria said. "I always thought if you can hit, you're going to the postseason. If you have a good hitting team, you have a chance to win."
The Braves, 55-51, are 4.5 games behind the pace-setting New York Mets and 1.5 games behind Philadelphia in a three-team fight for the National League East division crown.
They trail Arizona by 2.5 games for the wild-card playoff berth going to the best second-place club.
The Braves sent Texas catcher and first baseman Jarrod Saltalamacchia and four developmental league players to land Teixeira, who is eligible for contract arbitration after this season.
Teixeira, who has a five-year career average of .283 with 153 homers and 499 runs batted in, will add punch to a lineup lacking power from first basemen.
"It will be a better lineup, a more dangerous lineup," Renteria said. "I think we needed a good hitter like him."
Another major deal among several expected at the deadline was to send Texas relief ace Eric Gagne to the Boston Red Sox. After missing much of the past two years with injuries, Gagne has 16 saves in 17 chances and a 2.16 ERA this year.
"We're just trying to make the club better for the long haul," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said.
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