MAJOR LEAGUES
The Blue Jays ended a 10-game losing streak against the New York Yankees with a 5-2 victory on Monday after R.A. Dickey pitched into the seventh inning and Jose Reyes sparked the Toronto offense.
Alex Rodriguez hit his 650th home run, a leadoff drive in the fifth inning, but the Yankees lost for the ninth time in 13 road games this month. Rodriguez is 10 homers away from tying Willie Mays for fourth on the career list, which would secure a US$6 million bonus for the third baseman.
Derek Jeter went hitless in his return to New York’s lineup. Jeter, who had been out with a calf injury, finished nil-for-three with a walk.
In New York, the Phillies’ Cliff Lee outpitched Zack Wheeler after the Mets learned All-Star starter Matt Harvey has a partially torn ligament in his right elbow, and Cody Asche had a two-run triple as Philadelphia beat New York 2-1.
Lee (11-3) allowed a run and five hits in eight innings to win for the first time in seven starts since July 5. Asche hit his first major league triple — with two outs in the fourth — as the Phillies improved to 7-4 under new manager Ryne Sandberg and won for the second time in 15 road games.
In the American League, Coco Crisp and Daric Barton each drove in two runs, leading the Oakland Athletics past Miguel Cabrera and the Detroit Tigers 8-6.
Cabrera hit his 43rd homer, bolstering his pursuit of another Triple Crown, but Barton had a tiebreaking RBI single in Oakland’s two-run sixth inning. Crisp also had a solo homer during his three-hit performance.
Kansas City’s Jeremy Guthrie tossed five effective innings, helping the Royals roll to an 11-1 victory in the makeup of a snowed-out game from early May.
The Texas Rangers downed the Seattle Mariners 8-3 and the Houston Astros defeated the Chicago White Sox 10-8.
In the NL, Zack Greinke came within one strike of his fifth career shutout, while Hanley Ramirez and Yasiel Puig homered as the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Chicago Cubs 6-2.
Cardinals slugger Allen Craig hit his first career grand slam with two outs in the seventh inning helping St Louis beat the Cincinnati Reds 8-6.
Matt Holliday also had a long three-run homer as St Louis moved into sole possession of first place in the NL Central for the first time since July 29. The Cardinals lead idle Pittsburgh by half a game and Cincinnati by 3.5 games.
In other games, the Colorado Rockies downed the San Francisco Giants 6-1 and the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the San Diego Padres 6-1.
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