MAJOR LEAGUES
Jered Weaver kept the Los Angeles Angels firmly in the playoff hunt by shutting down the Chicago White Sox in a 4-1 triumph on Sunday that gave the pitching ace his American League-leading 19th win of the season.
Weaver allowed just one run in 6-1/3 innings to keep the Angels 2-1/2 games behind Oakland for the second American League wild-card spot with nine games remaining.
“We just have to go out there and keep winning,” Weaver told reporters. “Obviously, there’s a little bit of scoreboard watching, [but] we can’t worry about what other teams are doing.”
The Angels’ big right-hander won his third consecutive start to break a tie with fellow Cy Young hopeful David Price of Tampa Bay for the league’s lead in wins.
The visiting White Sox missed the chance to extend their lead at the top of the American League Central. The White Sox (81-71) have a one-game advantage over Detroit, who were swept in a doubleheader with Minnesota.
The Tigers lost 10-4 in the opener, before falling 2-1 in 10 innings behind a game-winning RBI single from Twins infielder Jamey Carroll.
Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera had an RBI in each game, giving him a major league-leading 133. The slugger is still pursuing baseball’s elusive triple crown as he leads the league in batting average (.331) and runs batted in, and is tied for the top spot in home runs with 42.
In Seattle, the Texas Rangers avoided being swept by the Mariners with a 3-2 victory. The first-placed Rangers (90-62) have a four-game lead in the American League West.
In Boston, Baltimore’s Ryan Flaherty struck out with the bases loaded in the ninth inning to halt the Orioles’ late-inning magic as they lost 2-1 to the Red Sox to remain a game behind New York in the tight American League East race.
Baltimore had rallied on Saturday for their 16th consecutive extra-inning victory, but their latest charge fell just short and they missed a chance to catch the first-placed Yankees, who lost to Oakland.
New York (88-64) were beaten 5-4 by the Athletics, ending the Yankees’ run of seven consecutive wins.
Oakland (86-66) now lead the race for the second American League wild-card spot by three games.
In the National League, Atlanta beat Philadelphia 2-1 as they stretched their hold on the top wild-card spot.
The Milwaukee Brewers topped Washington 6-2 to stay within 2-1/2 games of the second wild-card spot held by St Louis. The Cardinals stayed in position with a 6-3 victory over the Chicago Cubs.
The Los Angeles Dodgers managed to stay three games out of a playoff spot by beating Cincinnati 5-3.
The San Francisco Giants clinched their second National League West title in three years on Saturday night with an 8-4 victory over the San Diego Padres.
The Giants, winners of the 2010 World Series, claimed the pennant despite losing All-Star closer Brian Wilson to a season-ending injury and leading hitter Melky Cabrera to a 50-game doping suspension.
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