Kansas City’s Lorenzo Cain and Salvador Perez both hit two-run homers as the Royals beat Tampa Bay 8-3 on Thursday to complete a four-game series sweep and build their lead in the American League standings.
The Royals moved 3.5 games clear of Houston — who lost to Cleveland and star rookie pitcher Cody Anderson — and 5.5 games above AL Central division rivals Minnesota, who were beaten at home by Detroit.
In the key National League encounter, St Louis defeated Pittsburgh to build their league and division lead over the Pirates to 5.5 games.
Photo: AP
Kansas City pitcher Yordano Ventura (4-6) went five innings, allowing four hits, in his return from four weeks out with an elbow condition that was causing numbness in his hand.
Eric Hosmer, Cheslor Cuthbert and Kendrys Morales all drove in runs for the Royals off Nathan Karns (4-5).
Cleveland’s Anderson kept Houston’s batters under control, guiding the Indians to a 3-1 victory.
Making only his fourth major-league start, Anderson (2-1) allowed Hank Conger’s leadoff homer in the third, but little else in 6-2/3 innings. Anderson has given up just three earned runs in 30-1/3 innings for a remarkable 0.89 ERA since being called up from the minors.
Astros starter Brett Oberholtzer (2-2) was almost as impressive, holding the Indians scoreless until they broke out for three runs in the sixth inning. Touted rookie Francisco Lindor tied the game with a leadoff homer, Ryan Raburn’s RBI double put the Indians ahead and Carlos Santana’s triple made it 3-1.
Detroit’s Ian Kinsler had a leadoff homer, a double and three RBIs to power the Tigers to a 4-2 victory over Minnesota.
Kinsler hit the second pitch of the game into the left-field seats for his 32nd career leadoff homer.
Tigers starter David Price (9-2) struck out eight in eight innings in his final start before going to the All-Star Game. Both runs against him were unearned.
St Louis pitcher Carlos Martinez made his case for inclusion on the NL All-Star team by pitching 7-1/3 scoreless innings to steer the Cardinals past Pittsburgh 4-1.
Martinez (10-3) improved to 7-1 with a 1.2 ERA in his past 10 starts. He is one of the five players contending for the NL’s All-Star final vote.
The Cardinals did their scoring in the fifth inning on two-run singles by Matt Carpenter — with one out — and Yadier Molina one out later.
Seattle’s Felix Hernandez threw seven scoreless innings to become the third pitcher with at least 11 wins before the All-Star break, leading the Mariners to a 7-2 win against the Los Angeles Angels.
Hernandez (11-5) only once faced trouble and reached the 11-win mark before the All-Star Game for the second time in his career.
Logan Morrison hit the first leadoff home run of his career and the Mariners had a season-high 19 hits; 12 off Angels’ starter Garrett Richards (9-6), who could not make it through the sixth.
New York’s Masahiro Tanaka allowed two hits over 7-2/3 innings to lead the Yankees past Oakland 6-2.
Chicago’s Jeff Samardzija pitched a shutout as the White Sox beat Toronto 2-0.
Los Angeles’ Zack Greinke pitched eight scoreless innings as the Dodgers beat Philadelphia 6-0.
Colorado’s Carlos Gonzalez hit three doubles, while Nolan Arenado had three hits for the second consecutive night to help the Rockies beat Atlanta 5-3.
Miami’s Jose Fernandez pitched seven innings and improved to 14-0 in his first 22 career starts at Marlins Park — tying the modern record for most consecutive home victories by a starter to begin a career — to steer the Marlins past Cincinnati 2-0.
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