INTERLEAGUE
After the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals expended everything they had in three consecutive spirited games, the neighboring rivals parted ways knowing they will see each other again next month. Then, perhaps, again after that.
Steve Pearce homered and scored twice to help Taiwan’s Chen Wei-yin earn his ninth victory as the Orioles beat Washington 4-3 on Thursday night for their eighth win in 10 games.
Photo: AFP
Adam Jones and Nelson Cruz both drove in a run for the Orioles, who built a 4-0 lead in the third inning and held on. Baltimore took two of three from the Nationals in the rain-shortened, home-and-home interleague showdown between division leaders.
“I personally enjoyed that series a lot, just cause of the proximity and the atmosphere down in DC,” said Orioles reliever Darren O’Day, who worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the eighth. “They’re top of the NL. Hopefully, we get to play them a few more times, later in the year in October. That would be nice.”
The Orioles won the opener in Washington, needing 11 innings to do so, before rain postponed Tuesday’s game until Aug. 4. The Nationals prevailed on Wednesday before coming up short in the finale.
Photo: AFP
Although the teams are based only 65km apart, enthusiasm for the series is not exactly Mets-Yankees or Cubs-White Sox, but there is still hope.
“It was a good series. It was very well put together,” losing pitcher Gio Gonzalez said. “It showed that there’s a lot of hope for a Beltway Series. They looked good and we looked good. Everyone had some fun.”
Jayson Werth homered for Washington, while Ryan Zimmerman had two hits and an RBI.
Chen (9-3) gave up three runs and eight hits in 5-2/3 innings, walking none and striking out six. The Taiwanese left-hander is 6-1 in 12 starts since May 3 and his nine wins are the most on the team.
After O’Day survived the eighth, Zach Britton got three outs for his 15th save, capping his 22nd consecutive scoreless appearance at home by retiring Werth with a runner on first.
At that point, the Orioles and many in crowd of 30,417 breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“That’s a very good team,” Jones said. “We love the competition and we love the fact that you never know what could happen in October. You could have a Battle of the Beltway when it’s a little colder and bring the fans back out.”
Gonzalez (6-5) allowed three earned runs and six hits in 6-2/3 innings. His streak of 22 consecutive scoreless innings ended when Pearce connected in the first.
Gonzalez won his previous three starts without giving up a run and was unbeaten in four starts following a one-month stay on the disabled list with a shoulder injury.
“I felt fine,” Gonzalez said. “It’s a tough lineup, all the way down to the last guy.”
Pearce put the Orioles in front for good with a drive to left on a 2-0 pitch. It was his 11th home run, more than his previous three seasons combined.
Baltimore added three runs in the third after Gonzalez retired the first two batters. After an RBI double by Jones put runners on second and third, Cruz grounded a run-scoring single in the hole that shortstop Ian Desmond gloved before throwing wildly to third, allowing Jones to score.
That ended Washington’s 13-game errorless streak, which matched the team’s longest run since the franchise moved from Montreal in 2005.
Zimmerman’s two-out RBI single made it 4-1 in the fourth and Washington got runners on the corners with two outs in the fifth, before Chen struck out Anthony Rendon on three pitches.
The Nationals closed to 4-3 in the sixth.
After Werth homered on an 0-2 pitch — his second long ball in two nights — Zimmerman doubled and Desmond chased Chen with an RBI double off the scoreboard in right field, before Tommy Hunter retired Wilson Ramos on a ground-out.
Ramos later flied out with the bases full in the eighth.
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