MAJOR LEAGUES
The St Louis Cardinals opened a four-game lead over Cincinnati atop the National League Central division by beating the Reds 9-2 on Friday, with pitcher Adam Wainwright notching his ninth win of the season.
Elsewhere on Friday, Tampa Bay edged Baltimore to close the gap between them to half a game, while Arizona’s Paul Goldschmidt again proved the match-winner against San Francisco.
Photo: AFP
A wild pitch in the tenth inning gave the Los Angeles Dodgers victory over Atlanta, Detroit stretched their lead over division rival Cleveland and Oakland pulled off a come-from-behind win over the Chicago White Sox.
St Louis’ Adam Wainwright (9-3) gave up two runs over seven innings to guide the Cardinals to a league-best 40th win of the season.
Tampa Bay’s Chris Archer pitched seven strong innings in just his second start of the season to guide the Rays to a 2-1 win over Baltimore.
Desmond Jennings hit a two-run homer to the deepest part of the ball park in the seventh inning, and that was enough for the Rays.
Arizona’s Paul Goldschmidt continued his hot streak by hitting a three-run homer with two outs in the eighth inning, lifting the Diamondbacks to a 3-1 win over San Francisco.
The Giants looked poised for victory before Goldschmidt lined a 2-0 pitch from Jeremy Affeldt over the right field fence for his 15th home run of the season.
Los Angeles’ pinch-runner Skip Schumaker scored on the second wild pitch by Anthony Varvaro in the 10th inning, giving the Dodgers a 2-1 victory over the Braves.
Ramon Hernandez started the rally with a one-out single, took second on the first wild pitch and advanced to third on a single by Luis Cruz.
Varvaro (3-1) then bounced another wild pitch to the catcher, allowing Schumaker to score.
Dodgers rookie Yasiel Puig was on-deck, but he was not needed after homering for the fourth time in five career games.
Detroit’s Justin Verlander pitched seven solid innings to steer the Tigers to a 7-5 win over Cleveland, opening a 3-1/2 game lead over the Indians atop the American League Central.
Verlander (8-4) allowed seven hits and struck out six.
Victor Martinez homered among his three hits for the Tigers in this opener of a three-game series.
Oakland’s Josh Donaldson hit his first career grand slam to rally the Athletics from a three-run deficit and beat the Chicago White Sox 4-1.
Donaldson’s sixth-inning homer was one of two key moments, with the other being Josh Reddick making a homer-saving catch in the bottom of the ninth.
Toronto’s Edwin Encarnacion hit a two-run double and pitcher Neil Wagner earned his first major league win as the Blue Jays beat Texas 6-1.
Seattle’s Brendan Ryan and Jason Bay both hit two-out, two-run singles in a four-run fourth inning, while Jeremy Bonderman won for the first time since 2010 as the Mariners beat the New York Yankees 4-1.
Colorado’s Nolan Arenado hit a game-ending homer leading off the ninth inning, completing a giant comeback from a six-run deficit, and giving the Rockies a 10-9 win over San Diego.
Pittsburgh’s Francisco Liriano pitched seven scoreless innings as the Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs 2-0 for their major league-leading 10th shutout.
Milwaukee’s Aramis Ramirez hit an RBI single with one out in the ninth inning, rallying Milwaukee from four runs down to beat Philadelphia 5-4 and end Philadelphia’s five-game winning streak.
Kansas City’s Billy Butler drove in the go-ahead run in the eighth inning as the Royals beat Houston 4-2 for their third straight win.
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