Ryan Howard homered twice and Jimmy Rollins also connected to back another strong outing by Cole Hamels, helping the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Boston Red Sox 8-2 on Monday in an interleague matchup of division leaders.
Hamels (7-4) allowed two runs and seven hits in seven-plus innings.
Dustin Pedroia and J.D. Drew hit consecutive homers for Boston.
Red Sox starter Bartolo Colon (4-2) gave up four runs and six hits in four innings.
Braves 7, Rockies 1
At Denver, Chipper Jones hit a two-run single in the fifth to break a scoreless tie and Jair Jurrjens pitched into the eighth inning without allowing a run as Atlanta beat Colorado in the National League.
Jones finished 2-for-4 with a walk.
Jeff Francoeur had a two-run double in the seventh and Brandon Jones added a two-run single in the ninth.
Jurrjens struck out seven and allowed eight hits in a career-high seven-and-two-third innings.
Marlins 6, Mariners 1
At Seattle, Andrew Miller allowed one run and six hits over seven innings for Florida over Seattle.
Just hours after Seattle fired Bill Bavasi the Mariners lost their eighth straight at home.
Luis Gonzalez drove in two runs for the Marlins and Dan Uggla, Jeremy Hermida and Hanley Ramirez all had two hits for Florida.
Seattle starter Carlos Silva (3-8) gave up two runs in the first.
Giants 8, Tigers 6
At San Francisco, John Bowker hit a go-ahead, three-run homer in the eighth inning to spoil Fernando Rodney’s season debut, and San Francisco won its first interleague game in seven tries this year.
Marcus Thames homered twice and drove in three runs for the Tigers, who had their season-best six-game winning streak snapped.
Bowker was the first batter faced by Rodney after he relieved Freddy Dolsi (0-2) with two on.
Keiichi Yabu (3-3) pitched the eighth for the win. Fred Lewis homered and added a two-run double in the eighth. Curtis Granderson had a two-run single for Detroit in the ninth.
Mets 9, Angels 6
At Anaheim, California, Carlos Beltran homered twice for New York and Mike Pelfrey won for the first time in 11 starts.
Pelfrey (3-6) allowed six runs, eight hits and two walks in six-plus innings and did not strike out a batter in his first regular-season start against an AL team.
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