NATIONAL LEAGUE
The Philadelphia Phillies held off a spirited rally to defeat the Chicago Cubs 7-5 at Citizens Bank Park on Friday.
Philadelphia built a 7-0 lead on the strength of seven strong innings from starter Roy Halladay and a Grand Slam by Placido Polanco in the seventh inning, but nearly let the game slip away in the eighth inning.
Photo: Reuters
“I tried to be aggressive,” Polanco said. “He [Zambrano] is a great pitcher and may only give you one pitch to hit in the at-bat.”
Halladay allowed six hits while striking out nine batters and did not give up a walk in seven scoreless innings to earn his league leading ninth win.
“I thought where we were at, we could get six outs,” Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. “I thought we had the game in control.”
In stark contrast to Halladay’s brilliance, three Phillies relievers combined to allow five runs on three hits and three walks in the eighth inning alone, before Michael Stutes induced a fly ball out by Kosuke Fukudome with two men on to end the threat.
Stutes gave up a lead-off walk to Darwin Barney in the ninth inning, but struck out Starlin Castro and Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz threw out Barney attempting to steal second base for a double play. Antonio Bastardo closed out the game with a strikeout for his second save of the season.
Cubs starter Carlos Zambrano allowed seven runs on seven hits and seven walks while striking out five in over six innings, and left the game after serving up the Grand Slam to Polanco.
Shane Victorino scored Philadelphia’s first run in the first inning and Domonic Brown extended the lead to 3-0 with a two-run homer in the second inning.
BREWERS 8, CARDINALS 0
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Ryan Braun and Corey Hart homered, while Chris Narveson threw eight innings as the Milwaukee Brewers kept winning at home despite a small fire in the ballpark as they blanked the St Louis Cardinals.
Narveson (3-4) began his career as a Cardinals draft pick, but he’s played an important role in Milwaukee’s rotation and stymied his former team after losing to St Louis on May 8.
Braun’s two-run homer made it 4-0 in the fifth and Hart started the sixth with another drive just as smoke started to billow in right field from a concession stand’s malfunctioning popcorn machine.
Tony La Russa managed his 5,000th game for the Cardinals, but there was little he could have liked from this one after St Louis managed just six hits.
In other NL action, it was:
‧ Marlins 6, Diamondbacks 4
‧ Rockies 6, Dodgers 5
‧ Braves 11, Astros 4
‧ Mets 8, Pirates 1
‧ Nationals 2, Padres 1
‧ Giants 3, Reds 2
AMERICAN LEAGUE
AP, TORONTO
Clay Buchholz allowed three hits over seven innings, while Jacoby Ellsbury went 3 for 5 with three runs scored as Boston beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-1 on Friday for the Red Sox’s seventh straight win to match their season high.
Buchholz (5-3) struck out six and walked two as he ended a career-long run of four straight no-decisions.
American League RBI leader Adrian Gonzalez drove in a run with a fifth-inning single that gave the Red Sox first baseman seven consecutive games with at least one run driven in. He drove in another run with a ground-rule double off reliever Shawn Camp in the ninth that made it 5-1.
Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia drove in a run each for Boston, who improved their league-best record to 37-26.
YANKEES 11, INDIANS 7
In New York, Alex Rodriguez hit a long home run and Curtis Granderson also connected for New York in a game that quickly grew testy.
Yankees manager Joe Girardi and Cleveland counterpart Manny Acta got into a face-to-face screaming match when both benches and bullpens emptied after Mark Teixeira was hit by a second-inning fastball from Indians starter Fausto Carmona.
No punches were thrown and there appeared to be little pushing and shoving — if any. Home-plate umpire Dale Scott issued warnings to both teams.
Ivan Nova (5-4) pitched seven innings for New York, while Derek Jeter had one hit to move within nine of 3,000. Jorge Posada, breaking out of a season-long slump, added three hits and an RBI.
Robinson Cano had three hits and an RBI, while Teixeira stroked a three-run double that made it 10-2 in the seventh. Rodriguez hit his 625th career homer into the second row of bleacher seats in left-center.
MARINERS 3, TIGERS 2
In Detroit, Michigan, Carlos Peguero homered and tripled in place of Ichiro Suzuki in right field as Seattle beat Detroit.
The struggling Suzuki, who had played in 255 consecutive games, was given the night off. Peguero, a rookie playing his 26th major league game, helped Seattle overcome a 2-1 deficit.
He tripled in the fifth and scored the tying run. Then in the seventh, he hit a towering flyball down the right-field line off Brad Penny (5-5) that stayed just fair as it went over the wall.
Victor Martinez hit a two-run homer, one of only five hits for Detroit. Detroit are 9-3 in their last 12 games.
In other AL action, it was:
‧ Orioles 7, Rays 0
‧ Athletics 7, White Sox 5
‧ Rangers 9, Twins 3
‧ Royals 4, Angels 2
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