Kansas City’s Eric Hosmer and Salvador Perez blasted home runs as the American League claimed home field advantage in the World Series with a 4-2 win on Tuesday over the National League in the annual MLB All-Star Game.
Hosmer, who was selected game MVP, and Perez combined to drive in all the runs for the winning team by hitting homers in a three-run second inning at Petco Park in San Diego, California. Hosmer also had an RBI single in the third. Hosmer became the first Royals player to be named MVP of Major League Baseball’s mid-summer classic since Bo Jackson in 1989.
Hosmer said the focus for the AL players in the close contest was on securing home field advantage for the championship series.
Photo: EPA
“That was the message from everyone in the clubhouse,” he said. “It is such a huge advantage to have home field advantage. I don’t know who it is going to be, but we wanted to bring it back to the American League.”
The game, in front of a crowd of 42,386, featured a moment of controversy during the performance of the Canadian national anthem.
One member of the Canadian group The Tenors caused a kerfuffle by inserting “All Lives Matter” into the lyrics of the song and holding up a sign with the slogan.
The group later apologized on its Twitter account.
The NL was leading 1-0 thanks to a Kris Bryant homer in the first inning when Hosmer tied it with a one-out homer off NL starter Johnny Cueto.
“I put a good swing on one,” he said of the 119m drive into the left field stands. “I was just smiling all the way around the bases. It is fun when you can play this game and feel like a kid again.”
Two batters later, Perez connected for a two-run, 114m shot into the left-field stands off Cueto.
Hosmer finished two-for-three with two RBIs.
Cleveland right-hander Corey Kluber was the winning pitcher and Baltimore left-hander Zach Britton collected the save.
Cueto suffered the loss.
The NL stranded 10 runners and left the bases loaded in the eighth when Houston right-hander Will Harris threw a called third strike pitch past pinch-hitter Aldemys Diaz.
Boston designated hitter David Ortiz, who has said he will retire, drew a one-out walk and received an ovation from the crowd and hugs from the AL team bench when he came out for pinch-runner Edwin Encarnacion of the Toronto Blue Jays.
“Something that I will never forget,” Ortiz said of the cheers.
The 10-time all-star announced his intention to retire after his 20th season.
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