MAJOR LEAGUES
Coco Crisp hit a tiebreaking two-run homer in the fifth inning that was confirmed by a video review as the Oakland Athletics pulled into a share of first-place with Texas atop the American League West by beating the Rangers 4-2 on Monday.
Yoenis Cespedes homered leading off the second inning and Chris Young added an RBI single in Oakland’s fourth straight win.
Photo: AFP
Crisp set a career-high with his 17th homer that stayed just fair of the left-field foul pole, topping his 16 for Cleveland in 2005. He fouled a ball off the area below his right knee in the sixth. He stayed in and struck out, and then was removed for what the team called a shin contusion.
Boston’s Doug Fister rebounded from a miserable start with seven sharp innings to help the Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox 3-0 in a matchup of teams with the AL’s best records.
The Tigers won despite missing Miguel Cabrera for the third straight game. He has been sidelined by a strained abdomen, although general manager Dave Dombrowski said the Triple Crown winner has been more hampered by a groin problem.
In New York, Derek Jeter ended a slump with two hits and two RBIs, while Alex Rodriguez reached base twice in an eight-run fourth inning as the Yankees beat the Chicago White Sox 9-1 in a game interrupted for nearly two hours by rain.
Alfonso Soriano, Mark Reynolds Austin Romine, Vernon Wells, Brett Gardner and Jeter all drove in runs during the fourth-inning barrage.
The offensive outburst made life easy on David Huff (2-0), who entered for Phil Hughes with one out in the second when play resumed.
Anaheim pitcher Garrett Richards worked around a career-high seven walks over five innings and Erick Aybar drove in four runs as the surging Angels downed the Tampa Bay Rays 11-2.
In other AL games, the Baltimore Orioles downed the Cleveland Indians 7-2, the Kansas City Royals beat the Seattle Mariners 3-1 and the Minnesota Twins were 10-6 winners over the Houston Astros.
In the National League, Clayton Kershaw surrendered a career-high 11 hits in five innings and got the win, while Yasiel Puig scored the go-ahead run before leaving with a strained right knee as the surging Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Colorado Rockies 10-8.
Puig was called out for interference on the bases in the first inning. He then hurt his knee on an awkward slide into third base and gingerly jogged home on Hanley Ramirez’s sacrifice fly in the sixth, before being replaced in right field.
Neil Walker hit a three-run homer for Pittsburgh and Charlie Morton pitched seven strong innings as the Pirates beat the Milwaukee Brewers 5-2 to retake the NL Central lead.
The Pirates moved one game ahead of St Louis. Pittsburgh won the first of a nine-game road trip.
Cincinnati’s Choo Shin-soo and Joey Votto homered as the Reds beat the St Louis Cardinals 7-2 in the opener of a four-game series between the NL Central rivals.
In other games, the Philadelphia Phillies edged the Washington Nationals 3-2, the Atlanta Braves downed the New York Mets 13-5, the San Diego Padres routed the San Francisco Giants 4-1 and the Florida Marlins beat the Chicago Cubs 4-3.
In the only interleague game, the Toronto Blue Jays won 4-1 over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
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