Livan Hernandez used his off-speed pitching to lead the New York Mets to an 8-4 win over the Florida Marlins in the National League on Saturday.
Florida had been the last undefeated team in the majors, but Hernandez tamed the Marlins’ powerful offense, taking a shutout into the seventh inning.
He gave up only two runs in the longest outing this season by a starter for the Mets, who also got 15 hits.
PHOTO: REUTERS
PADRES 6, GIANTS 3
At San Diego, California, Jake Peavy struck out 10 batters in eight-and-a-third innings to steer San Diego to victory over San Francisco.
Adrian Gonzalez drove in three runs and Henry Blanco homered twice for the Padres.
Blanco tied his career high with two solo homers, the second one leading off the fifth to break a 1-1 tie. Gonzalez added a two-out, three-run double in the inning to give the Padres a 5-1 lead.
CARDINALS 11, ASTROS 2
At St Louis, Missouri, Albert Pujols hit a grand slam and a three-run homer to match a career high with seven RBIs, leading St Louis over Houston.
It was Pujols’ 24th multihomer game. He matched his career best for RBIs set on Aug. 22, 2006, against the New York Mets.
The All-Star first baseman went two-for-four and is batting .429 with three homers and nine RBIs in the team’s first six games.
PHILLIES 8, ROCKIES 4
At Denver, Colorado, pitcher Brett Myers extended his good record against Colorado.
Myers gave up three home runs but still got the win, improving to 5-0 at Coors Field and 7-0 in eight career appearances against the Rockies.
The right-hander allowed only four hits, striking out six and walking one for the defending World Series champions.
CUBS 6, BREWERS 5
At Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Alfonso Soriano made up for another poor performance by the Cubs’ bullpen, smacking a go-ahead two-run homer in the ninth inning to lead Chicago over Milwaukee.
The Cubs entered the ninth trailing by a run, but with one out, Soriano clubbed a pitch into the second deck in left field.
DODGERS 11, DIAMONDBACKS 2
At Phoenix, Orlando Hudson homered, doubled and drove in three runs against his former team as Los Angeles routed Arizona.
PIRATES 10, REDS 2
At Cincinnatti, Ohio, Paul Maholm allowed only three hits in seven innings to lead Pittsburgh over Cincinnatti. Ryan Doumit hit his first career grand slam — one of three Pirates’ homers.
BRAVES 5, NATIONALS 3
In Atlanta, Georgia, Kenshin Kawakami pitched six effective innings to win his major league debut and steer the home team over Washington.
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