The New York Yankees and Detroit both tightened their American League (AL) division races with victories over the leaders on Thursday, while Oakland widened its gap atop the AL West.
The Yankees moved within 1.5 games of Toronto by beating the Blue Jays for the 16th consecutive time, Detroit crept back within half a game of Kansas City by ending the Royals’ 10-game winning streak and Oakland padded its lead out to six games with victory over Boston.
New York’s David Phelps pitched seven strong innings to guide the Yankees to a 6-4 win over Toronto.
Phelps (3-4) yielded two runs and struck out seven.
Carlos Beltran drove in two runs for New York, which swept a three-game home series for the first time this season.
Oakland’s Scott Kazmir pitched seven innings to win his fourth straight start and steer the Athletics to a 4-2 win over Boston.
Kazmir (9-2) extended his streak to 18-1/3 innings without allowing an earned run before giving up a two-run homer in the sixth. He struck out eight and did not walk a batter.
Yoenis Cespedes hit his 14th home run of the season, blasting a solo shot off Jake Peavy (1-5) in the third.
Detroit’s Anibal Sanchez also pitched seven sharp innings as the Tigers beat Kansas City 2-1.
Sanchez (4-2) kept the Royals’ offense quiet, even though he failed to strike out a batter.
J.D. Martinez hit a tiebreaking homer in the fourth for the Tigers, who avoided a four-game sweep.
Cleveland’s Nick Swisher provided the storybook ending by hitting a Grand Slam with two outs in the 10th inning to give the Indians a 5-3 win over the Los Angeles Angels.
Swisher had gone zero for four with three strikeouts before his game-winning swipe to cap an improbable comeback after Albert Pujols’ two-run single put the Angels ahead in the top of the inning.
Michael Bourn drew a leadoff walk and took third on Jason Kipnis’ one-out double.
Another walk loaded the bases and LA changed pitchers, bringing on Ernesto Frieri.
Frieri got the second out, but then saw Swisher blast a shot over right-field.
Milwaukee’s Yovani Gallardo outpitched Chase Anderson in seven strong innings to lead the Brewers to a 4-1 win over Arizona.
Gallardo (5-4) held Arizona to one run over seven innings for his 86th career win, tying Ben Sheets for fifth on Milwaukee’s all-time list. Gallardo improved to 7-0 in 10 career starts against Arizona.
Carlos Gomez extended his hitting streak to 15 games for Milwaukee.
Atlanta’s Gavin Floyd, recently returned from Tommy John surgery, pitched six scoreless innings before leaving with a broken elbow, the latest setback for an injury-riddled Braves’ rotation and one that dampened a 3-0 victory over Washington.
Floyd (2-2) needed only 64 pitches to get through six innings, walking one and striking out six to outduel Jordan Zimmerman (5-4).
Chris Johnson drove in all three wins for Atlanta, which moved within half a game of the Nationals atop the NL East as the division rivals opened a four-game series.
Justin Wilson (2-0) retired the Reds in order in the top of the 12th.
Philadelphia’s Ryan Howard homered and drove in three runs, sparking the Phillies to a 4-1 victory over St. Louis.
Pittsburgh’s Russell Martin drew a bases-loaded walk from Tony Cingrani with two outs in the 12th inning to give the Pirates a 4-3 win over Cincinnati and avoid a three-game sweep.
New York’s Zack Wheeler tossed his first shutout to guide the Mets to a 1-0 win over Miami.
San Diego rookie Jesse Hahn pitched seven strong innings as the Padres rallied for the second-straight day over Seattle and won 4-1.
Minnesota’s Joe Mauer drove in two runs, including the go-ahead double in the eighth inning, to push the Twins past the Chicago White Sox 4-2.
Tampa Bay’s Chris Archer pitched 6-2/3 innings to steer the Rays to a 5-0 win over Houston.
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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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