The Boston Red Sox finalized a two-year, US$12 million contract with former White Sox closing pitcher Bobby Jenks on Tuesday, further shoring up a bullpen that was a weak link last season.
Though Jenks was the closer for Chicago when they won the World Series in 2005, that role of closing out victories in the ninth inning will remain with Jonathan Papelbon in Boston.
“We feel really lucky that Bobby wanted to pitch here and that we were able to get someone of his caliber to help Dan Bard set up for Papelbon,” Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein said. “Hopefully, he will be part of a ‘pen that will be one of the best we’ve had in Boston.”
Jenks saved 27 games for the White Sox last season but lost his closing job at the end of the year as he struggled with a forearm problem.
“It was more of a scare for everyone than something that was actually wrong. Medically, I was cleared to go,” Jenks said. “Going into this spring I’m going to be 100 percent and ready to go.”
The Red Sox have also added right-handers Matt Albers and Dan Wheeler to a bullpen that had the third-worst ERA in the American League last season.
“We’ve added a lot of depth, a lot of experience, a lot of power arms and strike-throwers to our ‘pen,” Epstein said.
Even though he won’t be their closer, Jenks said he’s happy to be joining a team he supported as a youngster.
“I’m just excited to get with the team that they’re putting together this year,” he said. “It’s all mental. You’ve just got to go out there and stay more focused.”
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