MAJOR LEAGUES
Arizona’s Cody Ross hit a sacrifice fly to drive in the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning, lifting the Diamondbacks to a 3-2 win over the Colorado Rockies on Saturday and closing the gap between the National League West’s top teams back to one game.
A.J. Pollock led off the inning with a single, stole second and moved to third on a throwing error. After a walk, Ross hit his fly ball to center field, giving the Rockies no chance to throw out the speedy Pollock.
Arizona have already won six extra-inning games, with no losses, this season.
Elsewhere, Baltimore hit back-to-back homers in the fourth inning to set up a victory over Oakland, Pittsburgh rallied to beat St Louis, a pair of two-run homers powered Detroit over Atlanta, Washington’s Bryce Harper homered and singled in their win over Cincinnati, Minnesota halted a three-game slide by downing Texas, Boston’s David Ortiz kept up his rich form against Houston and Travis Hafner had a rare triple as the New York Yankees beat Toronto.
Baltimore’s Nick Markakis and Adam Jones hit the back-to-back homers that helped the Orioles to a 7-3 win over Oakland.
Chris Tillman (1-1) notched seven strikeouts in his six innings for his first win of the season. He also had a rare at-bat for an American League pitcher, after an injury to Taylor Teagarden forced Baltimore to abandon their designated hitter. He struck out.
The Orioles are 3-0 on the start of an 11-game road trip and in position for their first four-game sweep in Oakland since 1987. The A’s have lost eight of nine.
Pittsburgh’s Russell Martin hit a two-run homer to highlight a four-run seventh inning that lifted the Pirates to a 5-3 win over St Louis.
The Pirates had three consecutive hits against Joe Kelly (0-1) to lead off the seventh and were aided by a hit by pitch and a walk to score four runs.
Detroit’s Omar Infante and Jhonny Peralta both hit two-run homers as the Tigers defeated Atlanta 7-4.
Infante’s homer off Kris Medlen (1-3) broke a 3-3 tie in the fourth.
Detroit starter Rick Porcello (1-2) allowed three runs in 6-1/3 innings — a contrast to his nightmarish start against the Angels the previous weekend when he gave up nine runs in the first inning.
Washington starter Dan Haren set aside his previous struggles to make his best start of the season as the Nationals beat Cincinnati 6-3.
Haren (2-3) allowed two runs over six innings, lowering his ERA from 7.36 to 6.29.
The Nationals were going for a sweep of the four-game series yesterday.
Minnesota’s Pedro Hernandez pitched five shutout innings for his first major league win, guiding the Twins to a 7-2 win over Texas.
Hernandez (1-0) was making just his second start for the Twins. After getting into a third-inning jam, he retired eight of the final nine hitters he faced.
Josh Willingham homered for Minnesota.
The Rangers went into the game having won seven of their previous eight.
Boston slugger David Ortiz continued his extraordinary return from a long-term injury by having two hits and three RBIs as the Red Sox overcame Houston 8-4.
“Big Papi” is hitting .519 (14 of 27) with nine RBIs since getting back into the lineup the previous Saturday, having missed 71 of the final 72 games last season and all of spring training with a heel injury.
Boston starter Felix Doubront overcame a wild first inning to pitch into the seventh for the Red Sox, who have won 17 games this month and could match the club’s April record if they completed the four-game sweep yesterday.
New York’s Travis Hafner hit a three-run homer, then the big man lumbered around the bases for a go-ahead triple in the seventh inning as the Yankees beat Toronto 5-4.
New York starter C.C. Sabathia (4-2) allowed three earned runs in eight innings with no walks.
The Blue Jays dropped to 1-5 on their seven-game road trip.
Milwaukee’s Carlos Gomez and Martin Maldonado each hit two-run homers to propel the Brewers to a 6-4 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Philadelphia’s Domonic Brown and John Mayberry Jr hit consecutive home runs to break open a close game as the Phillies beat the New York Mets 9-4, sending Jonathan Pettibone to his first major league win.
San Diego’s Yonder Alonso scored the winning run in the 12th inning when San Francisco second baseman Marco Scutaro could not come up with Nick Hundley’s grounder, lifting the Padres to an 8-7 victory.
Tampa Bay’s Matt Moore became the first Rays pitcher to win five games in April as they defeated the White Sox 10-4.
Kansas City’s Ervin Santana pitched seven scoreless innings and Salvador Perez hit a two-run homer as the Royals held on to beat Cleveland 3-2.
Seattle’s Kendrys Morales snapped a 2-2 tie with a pinch-hit RBI single in the seventh inning as the Mariners edged the Los Angeles Angels 3-2.
Chicago’s David DeJesus hit a tiebreaking single in the seventh inning to help lift the Cubs to a 3-2 win over the struggling Marlins.
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