MAJOR LEAGUES
Ryu Hyun-jin came close to making the Los Angeles Dodgers the first team in major league history to claim consecutive no-hitters on Monday as his side held on to beat the Cincinnati Reds 4-3.
The South Korean left-hander took a perfect game into the eighth inning a day after teammate Josh Beckett won 6-0 in Philadelphia.
Photo: AFP
The Reds hit only three balls out of the infield before Todd Frazier’s leadoff double down the left-field line on an 0-1 pitch in the eighth. That followed a three-run seventh by the Dodgers in which Ryu ran the bases and scored.
Cincinnati scored three times in the eighth, but right fielder Yasiel Puig made a key defensive play when he cut off Billy Hamilton’s two-run double in the gap. The relay home held Skip Schumaker at third before Kenley Jansen struck out Brandon Phillips with the bases loaded to preserve a 4-3 lead.
“Of course it was in the back of my mind,” Ryu said through a translator, explaining that he had never carried a no-hit bid that deep. “It wasn’t until the seventh that I thought it could happen.”
Ryu (5-2) was charged with three runs and three hits in 7-1/3 innings, improving to 6-0 in six career starts against the Reds. He struck out seven and walked none as he won for the first time at Dodger Stadium this season.
“He was great through seven,” backup catcher Drew Butera said. “When guys see a pitcher a third time, they’re a little more confident. He still made some good pitches; they just found some holes.”
In Atlanta, George, David Ortiz homered and drove in four runs as the Boston Red Sox ended their 10-game skid by rallying from a five-run deficit to defeat the Braves 8-6.
The defending World Series champions trailed 6-1 after the fourth inning of their interleague matchup, with starter Clay Buchholz walking a career-high eight in only three-plus innings.
However, Ortiz tied it by hitting a three-run homer off Ervin Santana in the fifth. To chants of “Papi, Papi” from the Red Sox fans at the Braves’ Turner Field, the World Series MVP then gave the visitors the lead with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly off Ian Thomas (1-2) in the seventh.
In St Louis, Missouri, the Yankees beat the Cardinals 6-4, with Brian Roberts hitting a tiebreaking single in a three-run 12th inning.
Pinch-hitter Alfonso Soriano and Brendan Ryan added an RBI each for the Yankees, who took the opener of a three-game interleague series for their third straight win.
A standing-room crowd of 47,311 — the third-largest ever at Busch Stadium — came to see rivals making only their second appearance in St Louis since losing to the Cardinals in the 1964 World Series.
Also on Monday, Jonathan Schoop hit two home runs and Nick Hundley singled in the go-ahead run in the 10th inning to lift Baltimore to a 7-6 win over the Brewers in an interleague contest.
The Cubs beat the Giants 8-4, with Jeff Samardzija striking out a season-high 10 for his first win since August last year, the Pirates rallied to beat the Mets 5-3 in New York, the Diamondbacks outclassed the Padres 7-5 and the Marlins edged the Nationals 3-2.
Meanwhile, the Phillies rebounded from their loss to the Dodgers on Sunday to beat the Rockies 9-0, while American League East-leaders the Blue Jays won for the 12th time in 14 games with a 10-5 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays, helped by Edwin Encarnacion’s 13th home run of the month.
Elsewhere, the Athletics ended a four-game skid with a 10-0 rout of the Tigers, the Astros won their third straight 9-2 at Kansas City, the Mariners beat the Angels 5-1, the White Sox outplayed Cleveland 6-2 and the Rangers were 7-2 victors over the Twins.
New Taipei Kings guard Jeremy Lin on Friday was named the Taiwan Professional Basketball League’s (TPBL) Player of the Month, the first domestic player to win the award, while the Hsinchu Toplus Lioneers are to welcome their third head coach in less than a year. Lin averaged 22 points, 5.4 rebounds and 6.6 assists over five games in October and last month, helping the Kings to second in the standings with a 4-2 record as of Friday. The Kings last night defeated the Lioneers 96-78 to move level with the top-of-the-table Formosa Dreamers (5-2), while in the night game, the New Taipei
Taiwan on Wednesday finished with 15 medals at the World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Hong Kong, taking home four gold, five silver and six bronze medals across the age group divisions. Taiwan ranked third on the medal table after South Korea with 17 golds and the US with eight golds at the five-day competition. “Your athletes have proven themselves as the best in the world,” World Taekwondo president Choue Chung-won said at the closing ceremony of the martial art contest that was attended by a record 1,727 athletes from around the world. On the first day of the competition at the Hong Kong
TO NO AVAIL: The Denver Nuggets’ Serbian center Nikola Jokic surpassed his 53-point performance in the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix The Washington Wizards withstood a 56-point explosion from Denver star Nikola Jokic to beat the Nuggets 122-113 on Saturday and snap their 16-game NBA losing streak. Jokic, who won his third NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) award last season, posted a career scoring high — surpassing a 53-point performance in game four of the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix and a 50-point regular-season best against Sacramento in 2021. The Serbian big man added 16 rebounds and eight assists, but it was all to no avail as Washington, buoyed by 39 points from Jordan Poole, won for the first time
Taiwan’s Lin Cheng-jing won a bronze medal in the clean and jerk in the women’s under-49 kg division at the 2024 IWF World Weightlifting Championships in Bahrain on Saturday. Lin won her first medal at a World Weightlifting Championships for lifting 107kg in the clean and jerk in her weight class, 2kg more than Rosegie Ramos of the Philippines. However, Ramos won bronze for the combined lift after topping Lin by 5kg in the snatch. Ri Song-gum of North Korea won gold in the division’s combined lift with a total of 213kg, while Xiang Linxiang of China took silver with
RSS