MAJOR LEAGUES
Jacoby Ellsbury had four hits and scored the winning run in the ninth inning off Brian McCann’s pop-fly single that dropped near three Cincinnati Reds in shallow right field, giving the New York Yankees a 3-2 victory on Sunday.
Ellsbury and Derek Jeter each had an RBI single for the Yankees, who finished a three-game sweep in their first series after the All-Star break.
Photo: USA TODAY
Ellsbury also stole two bases and made a sliding catch in center field that saved a run. He reached safety on each of the five times he batted, including a leadoff single in the ninth off Aroldis Chapman (0-3).
The Dodgers’ Adrian Gonzalez hit a tiebreaking single in the ninth inning off St Louis closer Trevor Rosenthal as Los Angeles salvaged the finale of a three-game series with a 4-3 win.
The Dodgers pulled into a virtual tie for first place with San Francisco in the NL West despite a middling performance by Clayton Kershaw, whose run of seven straight starts allowing one or fewer runs came to an end.
Yasiel Puig did not play after getting hit by a pitch on the left hand a day earlier, and the Dodgers finished without Hanley Ramirez, who was taken out in the ninth also after getting struck on the left hand.
In Toronto, Melky Cabrera hit a tiebreaking home run in the seventh inning as the Blue Jays beat the slumping Texas Rangers 9-6.
Cabrera drove in three runs and finished three-for-five, his 13th multi-hit effort in the past 28 games, as the Blue Jays won their first series since sweeping a two-game set against Milwaukee on July 1 and 2.
The Detroit Tigers downed the Cleveland Indians 5-1 to avoid a four-game sweep, after Drew Smyly allowed four hits in seven innings and Torii Hunter hit a two-run homer.
Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester allowed no earned runs for the third time in four starts as Boston blanked Kansas City 6-0 to complete a three-game sweep of the Royals.
In other games, Odrisamer Despaigne came within four outs of the first no-hitter in San Diego’s 46-year Major League history, as the San Diego Padres edged the New York Mets 2-1 and the Houston Astros beat the Chicago White Sox 11-7
The Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Minnesota Twins 5-3, the Los Angeles Angels overcame the Seattle Mariners 6-5 and the Oakland Athletics trounced the Baltimore Orioles 10-2.
The Miami Marlins beat the San Francisco Giants 3-2, the Pittsburgh Pirates downed the Colorado Rockies 5-3 and the Washington Nationals edged the Milwaukee Brewers 5-4
The Braves thrashed the Philadelphia Phillies 8-2 and the Arizona Diamondbacks were 3-2 winners over the Chicago Cubs.
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