MAJOR LEAGUES
Pinch-hitter Russell Martin singled home the decisive run in the 14th inning to give the MLB-leading Pittsburgh Pirates a 2-1 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday, their ninth consecutive victory. The surprising Pirates, who have not had a winning season since 1992, extended their longest winning streak since 2004, when they took 10 in a row. Pittsburgh reached the midpoint of their season with the best record in Major League Baseball at 51-30.
In other games, the Atlanta Braves defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks 6-2 for a three-game sweep in a matchup between National League division leaders, while the Baltimore Orioles beat the skidding New York Yankees 4-2 in the American League.
Photo: Reuters
The Yankees have now lost five straight — matching their longest losing streak of the year — and 13 of 18.
The Boston Red Sox, meanwhile, topped the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 to improve to an American League-best 50-34.
Gaby Sanchez led off the 14th for the Pirates with an infield single. With one out, he stole second for his first steal in more than a year. After a walk, Martin hit a soft liner to center off Francisco Rodriguez (1-1) and Sanchez ran around third and slid home ahead of the throw by Carlos Gomez.
Tony Watson (2-1) struck out four in three hitless innings as six Pirates relievers held Milwaukee scoreless over the final 11 innings.
Freddie Freeman, Dan Uggla and Brian McCann homered for the National League East-leading Braves, who improved to an MLB-best 28-11 at home.
Trevor Cahill (3-10) allowed six runs and seven hits in 4 1-3 innings as the NL West-leading Diamondbacks lost for the fifth time in six games.
Chris Davis set a Baltimore Orioles record by hitting his 31st home run before the All-Star break.
Manny Machado and Nate McLouth also homered for the Orioles.
Boston won for the fifth time in six games. Shane Victorino’s hard grounder eluded first baseman Josh Thole for an error as pinch-runner Jonathan Diaz raced home with the winning run against Toronto.
Jose Bautista had tied it in the ninth against Koji Uehara (1-0) with a solo homer.
Elsewhere, Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish struck out eight in 6 2-3 scoreless innings for his first victory in eight starts as the Texas Rangers beat the Cincinnati Reds 3-2.
Darvish (8-3) won for the first time since May 16, ending his longest professional winless drought — in his two years with the Rangers or seven in Japan before that. The right-hander was 0-2 with a 2.93 ERA in those seven games, when Texas scored only 12 runs while he was on the mound.
Yasiel Puig capped his sensational first month in Major League Baseball with his first four-hit game as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies 6-1.
Puig finished last month with 44 hits, surpassing the 42 by Pittsburgh’s Bob Elliott in September 1939 for the second-most in a player’s first full month in MLB. Joe DiMaggio had 48 in May 1936.
Puig got his first MLB triple in the fifth inning and scored on Adrian Gonzalez’s double for a 4-0 lead.
The San Francisco Giants got a two-run homer from Hunter Pence to beat the Colorado Rockies 5-2 and end their longest losing streak in three years.
Madison Bumgarner (8-5) struck out five and walked three, improving to 4-1 with a 2.18 ERA in his last five starts. The Giants had lost six straight.
The Los Angeles Angels beat the Houston Astros 3-1 to extend their winning streak to six games.
Josh Hamilton doubled home the go-ahead run in the eighth inning and scored on shortstop Jake Elmore’s overthrow.
C.J. Wilson (8-5) won his fourth straight start for the Angels, who swept three-game series at Detroit and Houston for their first undefeated road trip of at least six games since 2002.
Gio Gonzalez pitched seven shutout innings and Ian Desmond homered off a backup catcher as the Washington Nationals trounced the New York Mets 13-2.
Adam LaRoche homered and Desmond and Denard Span had RBI doubles in a four-run second to spoil Mets rookie Zack Wheeler’s home debut.
Jeff Mathis hit a grand slam with one out in the ninth inning to lift the Miami Marlins past San Diego 6-2.
Justin Masterson pitched his MLB-leading third shutout of the season as the Cleveland Indians beat the White Sox 4-0 to complete their first four-game sweep in Chicago since 1948.
David Lough hit three doubles and the tiebreaking home run in the eighth inning that led the Kansas City Royals over Minnesota 9-8.
The Chicago Cubs built an early six-run lead and held on to defeat Seattle 7-6, Tampa Bay beat Detroit 3-1 and Oakland topped St Louis 7-5.
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