MAJOR LEAGUES
Colorado’s Wilin Rosario scored on Yorvit Torrealba’s single in the 12th inning as the Rockies rallied to beat the Atlanta Braves 6-5 in Wednesday’s clash of two National League divisional leaders.
Rosario led off the 12th with a double off Luis Ayala (1-1). After an intentional walk and a strikeout, Torrealba ripped a single to leftfield, and Justin Upton’s throw to home plate was wide as Rosario slid in with the winning run.
Photo: Reuters
In the day’s top American League game, Stephen Drew’s two-run triple helped Boston over Oakland by the same score.
Elsewhere, Arizona beat San Francisco in 10 innings, St Louis completed a sweep of Washington, Texas scored nine runs in the fourth inning to set up victory over the Los Angeles Angels, Alex Cobb starred on the mound as Tampa Bay shut out the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh rallied to overcome Philadelphia.
Colorado’s Michael Cuddyer and Josh Rutledge homered for the Rockies, who ended a three-game skid. The victory was due mostly to the bullpen, which gave up only one hit over the final six innings.
Atlanta pitcher Tim Hudson remained stuck on 199 career wins.
Boston’s David Ortiz had two hits and drove in a run as Boston rebounded from a 13-0 trouncing by Oakland the previous day.
Ortiz is 8 for 16 since returning to the lineup on Saturday for the first time since August last year. He missed 71 of the final 72 games last season and all of spring training with an Achilles tendon injury.
Arizona pinch hitter Will Nieves delivered a sacrifice fly in the 10th inning to lift the Diamondbacks to a 3-2 win over San Francisco.
It was the second-straight extra-innings win for the Diamondbacks over the Giants, having won in 11 innings the previous day.
Arizona led 2-1 before Brandon Crawford hit a tying homer off David Hernandez (1-0) in the ninth.
St Louis scored three times in the first inning to beat Washington 4-2 and inflict the only four-start losing streak on Nationals ace Stephen Strasburg.
Yadier Molina’s two-run single off Strasburg in the first set up the victory.
The Nationals have lost six consecutive home games and scored only four times over the three games of the series.
Strasburg (1-4) struggled through a 26-pitch, 12-minute first inning and though he gave up no more runs after the first and went seven innings, he remained winless since the opening day of the season.
Texas’ Nelson Cruz capped the nine-run fourth inning with a three-run homer as the Rangers beat the Angels 11-3.
Lance Berkman had four RBIs while Yu Darvish (4-1) did not allow a runner past first base in six scoreless innings, struck out 11 and lowered his ERA to 1.65 after getting staked to an 11-0 lead. It was this 11th double-digit strikeout performance in 34 major league starts.
Tampa Bay’s Cobb pitched 8 1/3 scoreless innings to steer the Rays to a 3-0 win over the New York Yankees.
Cobb (3-1) gave up only two hits through the eighth. He struck out seven and walked just one.
Ben Zobrist put the Rays 2-0 up on a two-out, two-run double in the fifth.
Pittsburgh’s Brandon Inge got a pinch-hit tiebreaking RBI single in the eighth inning as the Pirates rallied to a 5-3 win over Philadelphia.
Pedro Alvarez hit a solo homer in the seventh and his RBI single in the fourth was the only hit off Phillies starter Roy Halladay. Reliever Mike Adams could not hold the eighth-inning lead.
Baltimore pitcher Jim Johnson walked Maicer Izturis with the bases loaded in the 11th inning to force in the tiebreaking run, giving Toronto a 6-5 win and ending the Orioles remarkable streak of 17 straight wins in extra innings.
Detroit’s Jose Valverde returned to the Tigers team with a save, securing a 7-5 win over Kansas City.
Valverde was not offered a contract after a nightmare postseason last year, but has worked his way back up from the minors.
Cincinnati pitcher Mat Latos retired 15 of the first 16 batters he faced, leading the Reds to a 1-0 win over the Chicago Cubs.
New York’s Jordany Valdespin hit a grand slam in the 10th inning as the Mets rallied past the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-3.
San Diego’s Edinson Volquez pitched seven strong innings, helping the Padres to a 2-1 win over Milwaukee, ending the Brewers’ nine-game winning streak.
Chicago’s Alex Rios hit a two-run homer as the White Sox beat Cleveland 3-2 to stop a four-game losing streak.
Houston’s Chris Carter, Ronny Cedeno and Brandon Laird homered as the Astros beat Seattle 10-3.
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
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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