MAJOR LEAGUES
Sean Rodriguez hit a tiebreaking homer in the sixth inning and drove in three runs to help the Tampa Bay Rays extend their longest winning streak this year to five games and hand the New York Yankees their season-worst fifth straight loss, 6-3 on Wednesday.
Ben Zobrist doubled twice among his three hits for the Rays, but ran into two outs. With manager Joe Maddon encouraging his team to be more aggressive on the bases, Rodriguez was thrown out trying to stretch an RBI single to the wall in right field in the fourth.
Photo: Adam Hunger / USA TODAY
In Washington, Ian Desmond’s solo homer provided the go-ahead run for the Nationals after a video review to complete a three-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies with a 4-3 win.
Jayson Werth also homered for Washington, who have won a season-high five straight. Washington’s Doug Fister (7-2) allowed three runs off seven hits over seven innings.
Michael McKenry hit a three-run homer for Colorado.
Seattle slugger Logan Morrison drove in two runs in a big sixth inning, and Chris Young pitched seven strong innings as the Mariners beat the Houston Astros 5-2 to complete a three-game sweep.
The Mariners were down by two before a four-run sixth inning, highlighted by Morrison’s double to right field off Brad Peacock (2-5) that put them on top. James Jones scored on a wild pitch in the inning, and John Buck had an RBI single.
Marwin Gonzalez and rookie Kike Hernandez homered for the Astros.
The Toronto Blue Jays downed the Milwaukee Brewers 7-4 after Edwin Encarnacion hit a three-run, walk-off home run in the ninth inning.
Jose Bautista and Juan Francisco also connected for the Blue Jays, who have hit a major league high 113 home runs this season.
Torii Hunter hit three RBI singles for Detroit and capped a six-run burst in the sixth inning that propelled the Tigers past the Oakland Athletics 9-3 for a three-game sweep. The three-time AL Central champion Tigers won for the 11th time in 13 games.
San Diego pitcher Tyson Ross allowed just three hits for his first career shutout, and Rene Rivera hit a three-run single off major leagues ERA leader Johnny Cueto to give the Padres a 3-0 win over the Cincinnati Reds for their first three-game sweep since September last year.
Justin Ruggiano, Mike Olt and Welington Castillo hit two-run homers to power the Chicago Cubs past the Boston Red Sox 16-9 in the finale of a three-game interleague series sweep, while Leury Garcia drove in the winning run with a pinch-hit single off Michael Morin in the ninth inning to lift the Chicago White Sox to 3-2 victory over the Los Angeles Angels.
INDIANS 5, DODGERS 4
Mike Aviles capped a three-run eighth inning with a two-run single against Brian Wilson, rallying Cleveland past Los Angeles.
Ryan Raburn homered off Ryu Hyun-jin, who was lifted after seven with a 3-2 lead.
Wilson (1-3) retired only one of the six batters he faced, giving up a tying single by pinch-hitter David Murphy and Aviles’ clutch hit after an intentional walk to Lonnie Chisenhall.
BRAVES 3, METS 1
Chris Johnson hit a three-run double and Julio Teheran pitched seven strong innings as Atlanta polished off a three-game sweep.
The Braves extended their best winning streak of the season to seven games. The Mets have lost four straight and seven of their past eight games and are a season-worst 11 games below .500.
Teheran (8-5) gave up four hits and three walks while lowering his ERA to 2.29. Jordan Walden pitched a perfect ninth for his third save, as closer Craig Kimbrel received a night off.
The NL East-leading Braves remain half a game ahead of the Washington Nationals.
New York rookie Jacob deGrom (1-5) was undone by his season-long control problems in a long first inning.
In other games, the Pittsburgh Pirates downed the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-1, the Miami Marlins blanked the Philadelphia Phillies 5-0, the Kansas City Royals shut out the Minnesota Twins 4-0 and the St Louis Cardinals were 2-0 winners over the San Francisco Giants.
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