MAJOR LEAGUES
Chris Tillman outpitched Justin Verlander, allowing one run while working into the ninth, as the Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers 3-1 on Sunday, handing the MLB’s last undefeated team their first loss.
Tillman (1-0) gave up five hits, including Torii Hunter’s solo homer in the fourth, in 8-1/3 innings. Tommy Hunter entered with one out in the ninth and Victor Martinez on second base, and retired the last two batters for his second save.
Photo: AFP
Verlander (0-1) gave up two runs on five hits and two walks over eight innings, striking out three to move past Tommy Bridges into fourth place on the Tigers’ all-time list with 1,674 strikeouts in his career.
In other American League games, Texas’ Yu Darvish allowed seven hits over seven innings in his season debut, as Elvis Andrus hit a two-run homer to lead the Rangers past the Tampa Bay Rays 3-0.
Darvish (1-0) struck out six and walked one in his first outing since a spring training game on March 16.
The Japanese star got his 500th career strikeout — coming in 401-2/3 innings — by fanning David DeJesus and Wil Myers in the first to become the fastest pitcher to reach 500 strikeouts in MLB history.
In Toronto, the Yankees’ C.C. Sabathia pitched six innings for his first victory of the season as New York topped the Blue Jays 6-4.
Sabathia (1-1) allowed four runs and seven hits, walked none and struck out six, while Brett Gardner hit a two-run homer for New York.
Elsewhere in the AL, the Boston Red Sox’s slow start to the season continued with a 4-0 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers in which Yovani Gallardo (2-0) made his second straight scoreless start as Milwaukee completed a three-game sweep.
The World Series champions, who never had a losing record last year, fell to 2-4, matching their longest skid of last year.
The Red Sox were swept just once last season, in a three-game series against the Texas Rangers, and Sunday’s loss marked the first time they have dropped their initial three home games since 1984.
In other AL games, the Minnesota Twins outslugged the Cleveland Indians 10-7, the Houston Astros ended a three-game losing streak with a 7-4 win over the Los Angeles Angels, the Chicago White Sox topped the Kansas City Royals 5-1 and the Oakland Athletics beat the Seattle Mariners 6-3
In the National League, Ian Desmond led off the seventh inning with a home run — the only run of the game scored on a hit — as Washington and their makeshift lineup avoided a sweep with a 2-1 win over the Atlanta Braves.
In the Nationals’ first hit of the game, Desmond ripped a fastball from Alex Wood (1-1) well into the left-field bleachers, as Taylor Jordan allowed one run over 6-2/3 innings and Jerry Blevins (1-0) retired two batters in the seventh for the win.
Also on Sunday, Pittsburgh’s Tony Sanchez hit a tie-breaking RBI double in the seventh as the Pirates edged the St Louis Cardinals 2-1.
Sanchez’s double to deep center field with two outs came off Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright (1-1) and broke a 1-1 tie.
In Chicago, Ryan Kali two-run double and an RBI triple as the Cubs avoided a sweep by topping the Philadelphia Phillies 8-3.
Elsewhere in the NL, the San Diego Padres got a 4-2 win over the Miami Marlins, the Cincinnati Reds defeated the New York Mets 2-1, the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Colorado Rockies 5-3 and the Los Angeles Dodgers topped the San Francisco Giants 6-2.
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