AMERICAN LEAGUE
The winless Boston Red Sox lost their sixth in a row for their worst start since 1945 when the Cleveland Indians squeezed home the only run in the eighth inning for a 1-0 victory on Thursday.
Boston, favored by many to win the World Series, were to return to Fenway Park for their home opener yesterday against the New York Yankees.
Photo: AFP
Asdrubal Cabrera’s suicide-squeeze bunt put the Indians ahead in their fourth straight victory.
They trapped pinch-runner Darnell McDonald off second base for the final out.
Cleveland swept the three-game series, which came after Texas swept the Red Sox to open the year.
YANKEES 4, TWINS 3
In New York, Derek Jeter passed Hall of Famers Rogers Hornsby and Jake Beckley for 33rd place on the MLB’s all-time hits list with a single and a double, while New York’s relievers held off Minnesota in their first game since blowing a big lead.
A.J. Burnett (2-0) improved to 7-0 in 12 April starts for the Yankees, allowing two runs on five hits in six innings. With the Yankees up 4-3, Rafael Soriano pitched a scoreless eighth two days after he surrendered a 4-0 lead in a game Minnesota won in extra innings.
The Twins lost heralded Japanese import Tsuyoshi Nishioka to an apparent broken left leg when Nick Swisher slid into him at second base while breaking up a double play. Nishioka was 0 for 4 with a strikeout on Thursday to drop his average to .208.
ATHLETICS 2, BLUE JAYS 1
In Toronto, Trevor Cahill pitched eight strong innings for his first win of the season, while Conor Jackson singled home the go-ahead run for Oakland to come from 1-0 down in the eighth to beat Toronto and avoid a three-game sweep.
Cahill (1-0) came in 0-2 with an 8.04 ERA in three starts against Toronto, but kept the Blue Jays in check. He allowed one run and three hits, walked none and struck out seven.
Toronto’s Ricky Romero allowed one run and four hits in 7-1/3 innings. He walked two and struck out five.
Oakland infielder Mark Ellis went in as a defensive replacement in the eighth to appear in his 1,000th MLB game.
In other AL action, it was:
‧ Orioles 9, Tigers 5
‧ White Sox 5, Rays 1
NATIONAL LEAGUE
AP, PHILADELPHIA
Roy Halladay pitched seven sharp innings for his first win of the season, while Wilson Valdez had a career-high four hits as the Philadelphia Phillies beat the New York Mets 11-0.
Halladay (1-0) allowed six hits and struck out seven. The reigning NL Cy Young Award winner gave up one run in six innings in the opener against Houston and avoided a loss when the Phillies rallied in the ninth for a 5-4 win.
The four-time NL East champions are off to a 5-1 start in a season where nothing less than a second World Series title in four years will be considered a success.
New York starter Jonathon Niese (0-1) got roughed up by an offense that’s averaging 7.2 runs and 12.7 hits per game. The left-hander allowed six runs and eight hits in four innings.
Valdez, filling in for injured All-Star Chase Utley, finished 4 for 4 with three RBIs, two doubles and two singles. Placido Polanco drove in four runs and Raul Ibanez hit a two-run homer.
ASTROS 3, REDS 2
In Cincinnati, Ohio, Matt Downs doubled home the tiebreaking run with two outs in the ninth inning as Houston held on for their first win of the season over previously unbeaten Cincinnati.
The Astros were the last NL team to win a game.
Downs, who had struck out in all three of his at-bats this season, doubled off Nick Masset (0-1) for the lead. Closer Brandon Lyon, who blew his only other save chance on opening day, gave up a pair of two-out singles, before getting pinch-hitter Ramon Hernandez to ground into a forceout.
The Reds won their first five games for the first time since 1990. They were the lone NL team left without a loss — Texas are still perfect in the American League.
In other NL action, it was:
‧ Nationals 5, Marlins 3, 11 inn
‧ Rockies 7, Pirates 1
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