MAJOR LEAGUES
David Ortiz hit a three-run homer as the Boston Red Sox beat Tampa Bay 3-2 on Sunday to end a five-game losing streak and stop the Rays’ longest winning streak in 10 years at nine games.
Ortiz’s 25th home run came in the third inning off Chris Archer (6-6) after a walk and Dustin Pedroia’s infield single. Ortiz’s homer was his fifth in seven games and his 29th at Tropicana Field, the most among visiting players.
Photo: AFP
Desmond Jennings hit a two-run double in the third inning against Allen Webster (1-0), who pitched 5-1/3 innings in his first major league appearance this season.
In San Francisco, Carl Crawford hit an RBI triple to back Ryu Hyun-jin’s third straight victory as the National League West-leading Los Angeles Dodgers completed a sweep of the San Francisco Giants with a 4-3 victory.
Ryu (12-5) moved within two wins of his rookie total last year and improved to 4-1 in five outings at AT&T Park, where in one dominant weekend the Dodgers made quite a statement to take over the division’s top spot.
In his Giants debut, Jake Peavy threw a pair of wild pitches in the fifth inning as the Dodgers went ahead on Hanley Ramirez’s RBI single ahead of Crawford’s triple to the corner in deep-right field.
Philadelphia’s Ryan Howard homered in his second game since a three-game benching and scored the go-ahead run on an overturned call at the plate as the Phillies downed the Arizona Diamondbacks 4-2.
With the score 2-2 in the sixth inning, Howard walked with two outs against Vidal Nuno (0-2). Marlon Byrd popped up to short-right field, where second baseman Didi Gregorius backpedaled slowly, settled under the ball and allowed it to kick off his glove and bounce toward center.
Dioner Navarro hit a go-ahead single with two outs in the ninth as the Toronto Blue Jays came back after wasting three leads to beat the New York Yankees 5-4 for their first series win in the Bronx since August 2012.
After ending a 17-game losing streak at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, Toronto did not relent in the humidity. Jose Bautista reached on a fielder’s choice against David Robertson (1-3) in the ninth inning, stole second without a throw and scored on Navarro’s liner to center field.
The Washington Nationals defeated the Cincinnati Reds 4-2 after Doug Fister (10-2) allowed just three hits in seven shutout innings and Adam LaRoche drove in two runs.
Devin Mesoraco’s two-run double in the ninth inning off Rafael Soriano allowed the Reds to avoid their 11th shutout loss.
Oakland’s John Jaso drove in three runs as the Athletics trounced the Texas Rangers 9-3, while Garrett Jones and Marcell Ozuna homered in the Miami Marlins’ 4-2 win over the Houston Astros for a three-game sweep.
In other games, Lucas Duda hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning off Jimmy Nelson as the New York Mets blanked the Milwaukee Brewers 2-0, the St Louis Cardinals shut the Chicago Cubs out 1-0, the Atlanta Braves downed the San Diego Padres 8-3 and the Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the Colorado Rockies 7-5.
Sam Fuld hit a tiebreaking, two-run single off Javy Guerra in a three-run seventh inning as the Minnesota Twins edged the Chicago White Sox 4-3, the Cleveland Indians downed the Kansas City Royals 10-3, the Los Angeles Angels beat the Detroit Tigers 2-1 and the Baltimore Orioles were 3-2 winners over the Seattle Mariners.
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