MAJOR LEAGUES
Sonny Gray and the Oakland Athletics fell out of the top American League wild-card spot with a 7-2 loss to Texas on Thursday that gave the Rangers a three-game sweep.
The latest loss to the team with the worst record in the majors dropped the A’s half a game behind the idle Kansas City Royals for the first wild-spot slot. Oakland owned the best record in the big leagues as recently as Aug. 15.
Photo: AFP
Gray saw his winless stretch reach five starts. The right-hander in his first full major league season has only one victory in 10 starts since his 5-0 July that earned him American League Pitcher of the Month honors.
Leonys Martin hit an RBI double and the Rangers came out swinging for 15 hits.
In St Louis, Missouri, Tony Cruz singled in the winning run in the 13th inning as the St Louis Cardinals moved closer to their second straight National League Central title with a 3-2 win over the Milwaukee Brewers.
The defending National League champions took two of three in a tight series that featured only 12 runs and another game that lasted 12 innings.
St Louis lead the division by 2.5 games with nine games to go.
Seattle slugger Logan Morrison hit a three-run homer with two outs in the ninth inning as the Mariners boosted their wild-card hopes with a 3-1 victory over American League West champions the Los Angeles Angels.
With just their third win in nine games, the Mariners pulled within one game of slumping Oakland for the second American League wild-card spot.
In New York, Derek Jeter began his final homestand with one more stroll around the bases, hitting a home run deep into the left-field seats in the sixth innings of the Yankees’ 3-2 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.
After Jose Bautista’s tying, two-run homer off Shawn Kelley with two outs in the eighth inning, Chase Headley sent the winning run home in the ninth with a one-out grounder through the legs of first baseman Adam Lind for an error.
Jeter earned a standing ovation from his adoring fans for just the fourth home run of his 20th and final major league season.
Hosts the Pittsburgh Pirates got a lucky break when Boston pinch-runner Jemile Weeks was hit by a batted ball in the ninth inning in a 3-2 win over the Boston Red Sox.
The Pirates won their fourth in a row and maintained their lead over Milwaukee for the second National League wild-card spot.
In other games, Gio Gonzalez allowed two runs in seven innings and Bryce Harper had three hits as the Washington Nationals kept up their push for home-field advantage in the National League playoffs by beating the Miami Marlins 6-2, the Los Angeles Dodgers downed the Chicago Cubs 8-4, the Colorado Rockies edged the Arizona Diamondbacks 7-6, the Cleveland Indians beat the Houston Astros 2-1 in the 13th inning and the San Diego Padres were 7-3 winners over the Philadelphia Phillies.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
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Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed