MAJOR LEAGUES
Boston’s Jacoby Ellsbury hit a two-run double to cap a ninth-inning rally that lifted the Red Sox to a 6-5 win over the Cleveland Indians on Sunday, moving them to the top of the American League East standings.
Boston moved level in the standings with the New York Yankees, who lost to Tampa Bay.
Also on Sunday, San Francisco rallied for a win over Colorado, Seattle ended an eight-game losing skid with a marathon 13-inning win over Texas and St Louis improved their league-leading record with a win over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Washington broke out with a five-run seventh inning to beat Philadelphia, the Chicago Cubs ended a six-game skid by downing Cincinnati in 10 innings and Pittsburgh hung on to edge Milwaukee.
Cleveland led Boston 5-2 entering the ninth, when Chris Perez (2-1) issued a walk, David Ortiz doubled, and Mike Napoli and Jarrod Saltalamacchia hit consecutive RBI groundouts.
Two walks, each side of Stephen Drew’s single loaded the bases. Perez fell behind Ellsbury 2-1 in the count and left with an arm injury. He was replaced by Joe Smith, who gave up a double on his first pitch.
The New York Yankees slipped back into a tie with Boston as they lost 8-3 at Tampa Bay.
Rays starter Alex Cobb (6-2) held the Yankees scoreless for the first eight innings and finished with eight strikeouts.
Yankees starter C.C. Sabathia (4-4) dropped to 0-2 with a 4.85 ERA over his past five starts and will match a career-worst six games without a win unless he wins his next start. Pitching for the Yankees, he has a 3-10 record against Tampa Bay.
San Francisco’s Brandon Belt hit a tiebreaking, two-run double in the fifth inning to lead the Giants to a 7-3 win over Colorado.
Giants starter Matt Cain (4-2) matched his season-worst five walks, but allowed only two hits in five innings.
San Francisco play 14 of their next 18 games on the road.
Seattle’s Jason Bay hit a two-out RBI single in the 13th inning to give the Mariners a 4-3 win over Texas.
Bay delivered after he was robbed of a game-winning homer in the 11th when David Murphy leaped above the fence in left-center field to take a catch.
Raul Ibanez tied it at 3-3 earlier in the 11th with a home run.
St Louis’ Matt Carpenter drove in the go-ahead run with an infield single as the Cardinals beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-3.
Peter Kozma hit a three-run double for the Cardinals, who improved the major league-best record to 32-17 and increased their NL Central lead over Cincinnati to 1-1/2 games.
Washington’s Stephen Strasburg came out on top of Cole Hamels in a match of two ace pitchers with poor records, helping the Nationals to a 6-1 win over Philadelphia.
Strasburg (3-5) allowed one run — with his first balk in the majors — in eight innings, walked none and struck out a season-high nine.
Hamels (1-8) struck out six and allowed only three hits through six innings, but still took the loss.
Ryan Zimmerman’s infield single started the five-run seventh-inning rally that included a pair of errors and Steve Lombardozzi’s two-run double.
Chicago’s Alfonso Soriano hit a tying two-run homer in the eighth inning and Welington Castillo had a go-ahead double in the 10th, helping the Cubs rally from a four-run deficit to beat Cincinnati 5-4.
After Anthony Rizzo hit an RBI double in the eighth — his third double in two games — Soriano followed with his fifth homer of the season and first since May 13. Soriano had also singled in the seventh and scored Chicago’s first run.
In the tenth, J.J. Hoover (0-4) walked a batter with two outs and Castillo followed with a double to put the Cubs ahead to stay.
Pittsburgh’s Wandy Rodriguez won his fourth consecutive start as the Pirates hung on to down Milwaukee 5-4. Rodriguez (6-2) gave up three earned runs in five innings to earn the victory.
Pedro Alvarez had a two-run double as the Pirates built an early four-run lead which proved to be just enough.
Arizona’s Patrick Corbin became the first Diamondbacks left-hander to start a season with eight straight wins, leading the hosts to a 6-5 win over San Diego.
New York’s Ike Davis busted out of his prolonged slump with a tie-breaking single in the eighth inning as the Mets rallied past Atlanta to win 4-2 and end an eight-game losing streak at home.
Toronto’s Munenori Kawasaki hit a game-ending two-run double in a four-run ninth inning, lifting the Blue Jays to a 6-5 win over Baltimore.
Detroit’s Max Scherzer pitched six solid innings to remain undefeated this season, steering the Tigers to a 6-1 win over Minnesota.
Los Angeles’ Josh Hamilton started a comeback when he homered leading off the seventh inning as the Angels beat Kansas City 5-2 to notch their eighth straight win.
Oakland’s Bartolo Colon struck out a season-high nine in seven scoreless innings as the Athletics beat Houston 6-2, winning their ninth straight game over the Astros this season.
Chicago’s Dayan Viciedo and Alex Rios each threw out a runner as the White Sox beat Miami 5-3.
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
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