Manny Ramirez hit a two-run homer and the Boston Red Sox rallied for three runs in the ninth inning against Cleveland Indians closer Joe Borowski for a 6-4 win on Monday in a stunning rerun of last October’s playoffs.
Ramirez’s shot off Borowski (0-2) was the latest Red Sox comeback against the Indians. Last autumn, Boston rallied from a 3-1 American League Championship Series deficit to beat Cleveland and advance to the World Series.
Julio Lugo hit a leadoff double in the ninth off Borowski and scored on Dustin Pedroia’s sacrifice fly to tie it 4-all.
With the Indians shifted to the right, David Ortiz dropped a bloop single into left — his second hit. Ramirez then belted Borowski’s first pitch into the left-field seats, a place he often visited with long balls while a member of the Indians.
The homer tied the long-haired hitting machine with Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig and Fred McGriff for 24th on the MLB career list.
Yankees 8, Rays 7
At St. Petersburg, Florida, Robinson Cano’s pinch-hit homer snapped an eighth-inning tie, and Alex Rodriguez hit No. 521 to match Hall of Famers Ted Williams and Willie McCovey for 15th on the career list in New York’s victory over Tampa Bay.
In other AL games it was:
Athletics 2, White Sox 1
Angels 7, Rangers 4
Royals 5, Mariners 1
Tigers 11, Twins 9
Orioles 4, Blue Jays 3
NATIONAL LEAGUE
AP, SAN FRANCISCO
Randy Johnson did not allow an earned run in five innings in his season debut, eight months after back surgery, settling down to finish with seven strikeouts and four walks before the San Francisco Giants rallied for a 5-4 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday.
The Giants loaded the bases in the seventh with no outs against reliever Chad Qualls (0-1), who allowed Ray Durham’s tying RBI groundout followed by Bengie Molina’s go-ahead sacrifice fly.
Keiichi Yabu (1-1), who had dental surgery earlier in the day, worked two scoreless innings for his first win in nearly three years. He beat the Giants on May 20, 2005, with the Oakland Athletics.
Conor Jackson drove in three runs for the Diamondbacks, who had their eight-game winning streak snapped on Sunday against Colorado and lost consecutive games for only the second time this year.
Pirates 6, Dodgers 4
At Los Angeles, Nate McLouth hit a three-run homer off All-Star closer Takashi Saito with two outs in the ninth inning to extend his season-opening hitting streak to 13 games, and Pittsburgh beat Los Angeles for their fourth straight win.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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