MAJOR LEAGUES
Jake Peavy allowed just three hits as the Boston Red Sox beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 8-1 to become the first team to win a series from the National League West leaders in two and a half months.
Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Shane Victorino and Mike Napoli homered for the Red Sox in the interleague game on the anniversary of the blockbuster nine-player trade in which the Dodgers acquired Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto from Boston.
Photo: AFP
Gonzalez hit his 17th homer, driving a 0-2 pitch to center field with one out in the fourth for the Dodgers’ first hit after the Red Sox staked Peavy to a 3-0 lead.
The Red Sox were the first team to win a series from the Dodgers since June 14 to June 16, when Pittsburgh took two of three. Los Angeles are 46-12 since June 22.
In the American League, Curtis Granderson hit a sacrifice fly in the 11th inning as the New York Yankees avoided a three-game sweep by defeating the Tampa Bay Rays 3-2.
Alfonso Soriano started the winning rally with a one-out double off Jamey Wright (2-2). He stole third and came home on Granderson’s fly-ball to center.
Jordan Danks homered after replacing the injured Avisail Garcia, backing a solid start by his brother John and helping the surging Chicago White Sox beat the Texas Rangers 5-2.
Also in the American League, the Toronto Blue Jays claimed a late 2-1 win over the Houston Astros, the Cleveland Indians beat the Minnesota Twins 3-1, the Baltimore Orioles trounced the Oakland Athletics 10-3 and the Los Angeles Angels defeated the Seattle Mariners 7-1.
In interleague games, the Kansas City Rangers beat the Washington Nationals 6-4 and the Detroit Tigers defeated the New York Mets 11-3.
In the National League, Mike Minor bounced back from the shortest outing of his career with seven strong innings to lead the Atlanta Braves to a 5-2 win over the St Louis Cardinals.
Atlanta, who have the best record in the National League, salvaged the finale of the four-game set.
Andrelton Simmons hit his 12th homer for the Braves, who closed out a 2-4 road trip.
Philadelphia’s Roy Halladay pitched six effective innings on his return from the disabled list and John Mayberry Jr homered as the Phillies beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 9-5.
Also in the National League, the San Francisco Giants blanked the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-0, the Milwaukee Brewers downed the Cincinnati Reds 3-1, the Colorado Rockies edged the Florida Marlins 4-3 and the San Diego Padres were 3-2 winners over the Chicago Cubs over 15 innings.
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