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The Columbus Crew announced that Precourt Sports Ventures LLC acquired the operating rights to the Major League Soccer club from Hunt Sports Group, which had owned and run it since its inception in 1996. Hunt Sports Group is still investor-operator of M.L.S.'s F.C. Dallas franchise. The Crew won the M.L.S. Cup in 2008.
The Memphis Grizzlies signed Mike Miller in a deal that brings back the best 3-point shooter in franchise history as the Grizzlies try to find a way to improve coming off their first Western Conference final. He helped the Miami Heat win the past two N.B.A. titles, and has shot 41 percent from 3-point range in 13 N.B.A. seasons.
Brandon Cumpton allowed three hits in seven innings to pick up his first major league win. Pittsburgh is a season-high 22 games over .500.
In the first game, Alex Presley hit a game-ending single off the glove of shortstop Pete Kozma with two outs in the 11th inning, and Pittsburgh won, 2-1.
The sweep propelled the Pirates into first place in the National League Central.
The Cardinals have lost six straight and have scored six runs during the stretch.
PHILLIES 7, GIANTS 3 Carlos Ruiz and Michael Young hit two-run homers to back John Lannan, and Philadelphia beat visiting San Francisco to end an eight-game losing streak.
BREWERS SWEEP CUBS Jeff Bianchi delivered a two-run single off shortstop Starlin Castro's glove with two outs in the ninth to lead visiting Milwaukee to a 3-2 victory over Chicago and a day-night doubleheader sweep.
In the first game, Jean Segura hit a solo homer and the go-ahead double, and Khris Davis added a three-run shot to lead the Brewers to a 6-5 victory.
BRAVES 11, ROCKIES 3 Freddie Freeman hit two home runs, Brian McCann added a three-run shot and host Atlanta won its fifth straight.
The Braves, who scored 10 unanswered runs, moved 10 games ahead of second-place Washington in the N.L. East. They lead the majors with a 36-15 home record.
TIGERS 5, NATIONALS 1 Alex Avila hit a tiebreaking grand slam in the sixth inning off Stephen Strasburg, and host Detroit beat Washington.
Strasburg is winless in his last four starts and has given up at least four earned runs in three of his last five outings.
RAYS 5, DIAMONDBACKS 2 Roberto Hernandez came within one out of a complete-game shutout, and Yunel Escobar and Ben Zobrist drove in two runs each as Tampa Bay opened a five-game homestand with a victory over Arizona.
The Rays won for the 21st time in 25 games this month and maintained their half-game lead over Boston in the American League East.
Ian Kennedy gave up six hits and three runs while striking out seven in five innings for Arizona.
INDIANS 7, WHITE SOX 4 Pinch-hitter Ryan Raburn's two-run single in the eighth inning rallied host Cleveland to its sixth straight win.
RED SOX 8, MARINERS 2 The rookie Brandon Workman struck out nine in picking up his first major league win, allowing one run over six innings as host Boston beat Seattle.
ORIOLES 4, ASTROS 3 Chris Davis hit his major league-leading 38th home run, a two-run shot in the sixth inning that gave host Baltimore its first lead in a victory over Houston.
Davis had gone 10 straight games without a home run.
J. J. Hardy hit a two-run single in the fourth inning to start Baltimore's comeback from a three-run deficit.ROYALS 7, TWINS 2 Mike Moustakas homered twice and drove in four runs to back another strong start from Ervin Santana, and surging Kansas City beat host Minnesota.
OAKLAND TRADES FOR CALLASPO The Oakland Athletics acquired third baseman Alberto Callaspo from the division rival Los Angeles Angels for infielder Grant Green.
Callaspo was removed from the Angels' game against the Texas Rangers after the fourth inning.
Callaspo was hitting .253 with five home runs and 36 runs batted in entering Tuesday. He will most likely play second base for the A's because Oakland has Josh Donaldson at third base. Callaspo last played second in 2010.
MANAGER SUPPORTS REPLAY Boston Manager John Farrell is certainly onboard with expanding the use of replays in baseball after an admitted blown call cost the Red Sox the potential tying run on Monday night.
Farrell said he believed that with better technology, umpires could get more "out or safe" calls correct.
DODGERS SIGN WILSON The Los Angeles Dodgers signed the free-agent reliever Brian Wilson to a one-year contract.
He hasn't pitched in the major leagues since April 12, 2012, the same month he had Tommy John surgery on his right elbow.
BERKMAN PONDERING FUTURE Texas Rangers designated hitter Lance Berkman expects to know soon whether he will retire. The 37-year-old Berkman has been on the disabled list since July 7 with left hip inflammation.
Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
The Mets' Zack Wheeler threw no-hit ball for six and a third innings against the Marlins but ultimately did not get a decision.
MIAMI — Near no-hitters tend not to be remembered. But compile enough over time, and a notable pattern may begin to emerge. From each fragment, a meaningful picture can be shaped.
Zack Wheeler held the Miami Marlins hitless into the seventh inning Tuesday night, imbuing a brief, breathless aura around Marlins Park, before the Mets scratched out a 4-2 victory in 10 innings. Besides its importance to the Mets' current state — it was their second straight victory over the Marlins, their pesky foil this year — Wheeler's outing augured more positivity for the Mets' future.
As a franchise, the Mets still possess only one no-hitter: Johan Santana's 134-pitch gem from last year. But what their staff has done this season may hold more practical significance, more competitive meaning than Santana's one-off performance.
On five occasions now this season, a Mets starter has carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning. Matt Harvey, 24, has done it three times, and Dillon Gee, 27, has done it once. Wheeler, 23, added his name to the list Tuesday, producing what was his best start since his June 18 debut. For a club that has tied its destiny to a young, unproven pitching staff, these brief glimpses of dominance — particularly from Harvey and Wheeler, both long-heralded prospects — become moments to savor.
"We've seen a few other ones like that this year, but that might have been about as dominant a performance through six innings I've seen all year from anybody," Manager Terry Collins said. "We're trying to build this thing up and give people something to root for and be excited about. If the performance so far of Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler and, really, a lot of guys in that pitching staff, if that's not an indication of what's coming, they're going to be real surprised."
Wheeler pitched seven innings, allowing two runs, three hits and three walks while striking out five. He lowered his earned run average to 3.55. Perhaps most encouraging, he threw 87 pitches and 64 strikes.
Wheeler has felt some growing pains upon his promotion. He has acknowledged command issues from the get-go. His coaches revealed early on that he was tipping his pitches. His mechanics never seemed quite right.
And still, Wheeler was highly effective. He entered Tuesday's game with a 4-1 record and 3.72 earned run average. That he could struggle superficially and still get results was a testament to his preternatural stuff, his coaches said. It was evidence that the hype that enveloped him from year to year through the minor leagues was not frivolous.
Wheeler's raw talent and growing refinement were on display at Marlins Park. He kept on attacking the strike zone and needed only 60 pitches to get through the first five innings. He used six more to get through the sixth.
"I felt smooth throughout my mechanics, rhythm was good, good tempo in between pitches, everything was just clicking well and I was hitting my spots," said Wheeler, who admitted he got away with a few mistakes, too.
Sweat glistened beneath his cap, pulled low over his eyes, and he worked quickly, playing off the Marlins aggressiveness. He popped fastballs into catcher John Buck's glove at 97 miles per hour, spun sliders home at 87 and flipped a few curveballs at 77. The Marlins hacked and missed these pitches that dipped and swerved.
"Once he got comfortable, it was a loose 96, 97, with some run, just easy cheese," Buck said of Wheeler's fastball. "He's a lot of ankles and elbows flinging around. He's very deceptive and funky with the ball. He hides it well."
The no-hitter was broken up in the seventh, when Ed Lucas punched a 95-m.p.h. fastball into right field for a one-out single. The hit seemed to unnerve Wheeler for a spell, as he gave up two straight hits after that, allowing the Marlins to tie the game, 2-2.
Once the no-hit bid was denied, the Mets' victory was suddenly at risk, too. While Wheeler worked, the Mets hitters were mostly fumbling about against Nathan Eovaldi, who pitched six innings. Center fielder Juan Lagares's two-run, fourth-inning triple accounted for the Mets' only runs against him.
The teams played a 20-inning game earlier this year, but the resolution was fairly quick Tuesday night. David Wright and Marlon Byrd hit consecutive singles to right field, and Ike Davis walked, as the Mets loaded the bases off Steve Cishek to start the 10th. And then Buck, facing his former team, shot a two-run single through the infield, clapping his hands twice, hard, once he got to first base.
It was an emotional boon for the Mets, who improved to 5-8 against the last-place Marlins. But the night would probably have been perceived as a positive one, anyway, for the glowing light it cast upon the Mets' future.
LOS ANGELES — The Yankees, old and infirm as they may be, have continued to hang on the fringes of the playoff race, limping along as gingerly as Derek Jeter runs to first base, and with a margin for error as narrow as that on Andy Pettitte's fastball.
Reinforcements may or may not arrive in the coming days, with the trading deadline at hand Wednesday and Alex Rodriguez nearing closer to either a return to the lineup or a long suspension.
But it is becoming increasingly likely that whether the Yankees manage to grind their way to a playoff berth over the season's final two months will be determined largely by how much their well-worn arms and legs have left.
That was the case again Tuesday when the guile of Pettitte, a turn-back-the-clock throw by Ichiro Suzuki and a diving catch by the heretofore iron-gloved Alfonso Soriano could only prolong defeat. Mark Ellis's run-scoring single with two outs in the bottom of the ninth gave the Dodgers a 3-2 victory over the Yankees.
When Ellis's full-count liner cleared the head of Jeter and landed in front of Brett Gardner, it easily scored Andre Ethier, who had surprised the Yankees by stealing his fourth base of the season to get into scoring position.
The loss, the Yankees' seventh in 11 games since the All-Star break, dropped them three and a half games behind Baltimore for the final wild-card berth. They trail first-place Tampa Bay by eight and a half games in the American League East. Their task does not get easier Wednesday, when they face Clayton Kershaw and his baseball-best 1.96 earned run average.
"There's no doubt: it's getting late," said Pettitte, who allowed two runs in seven innings. "We need to win."
If a sense of urgency is starting to creep through the Yankees' clubhouse, it will come from their veteran leaders. Counting on so many older players to play key roles — as the Yankees are doing — may be asking too much. But the Yankees have little choice at this point other than to count on Soriano, 37, who doubled and scored in addition to his rare stellar defensive play; Suzuki, 39; and even Lyle Overbay, 35, who drove in one run with a homer and another with a groundout. Pettitte, 41, will be followed to the mound Wednesday by Hiroki Kuroda, 38.
Jeter, in his brief return this season, has shown just how fragile success can be. He remarkably homered in his return on Sunday, but on Tuesday he looked more like an old Jeter than the old Jeter. He surrounded a grounder in the hole with his patented two-handed scoop and across-the-body throw. But it was an instant too late to catch pitcher Zack Greinke running to first.
Jeter also did not call off third baseman Jayson Nix on a fly ball down the left-field line, despite having a better angle for the ball. At bat, he grounded out four times, jogging to first rather than risk another injury with a full-out sprint.
The first three times, there seemed to be little consequence to this approach, but on the fourth, with the score tied and two outs in the eighth, Hanley Ramirez had to dive to glove his grounder and, despite a brief double-clutch, threw Jeter out at first.
"I told Hanley, I got that beat, usually," Jeter said. "But I don't want to get in trouble."
Jeter was referring to Manager Joe Girardi and others in the organization who have impressed upon Jeter how important it is for him to stay healthy the rest of the season. A player who has been known for bursting out of the batter's box with a quick first step now says he has little voices in his head reminding him not to run too hard.
He is listening to them for now.
"I feel weird talking about it because I've never done it," Jeter said. "You look at the big picture. I'm trying to do what I'm told. You don't want to do anything stupid. It's very difficult when your natural reaction is to run as hard as you can. It's difficult, but it won't last long."
Neither should the suspense surrounding Rodriguez, whose apparent ties to a South Florida anti-aging clinic have been the subject of an investigation by Major League Baseball. The announcement of a long suspension of Rodriguez by M.L.B. appears imminent, and Rodriguez, his lawyer has said, is intent on appealing a suspension. But Girardi maintained that the Yankees were proceeding as if he would return. Rodriguez is scheduled to test his strained quadriceps Thursday, though Girardi said it was unclear if it would be a minor league game or a simulated game.
"If we didn't think we were going to have him with us, we wouldn't do those things," Girardi said.
As murky as Rodriguez's situation is, so, too, is what the Yankees will do at third base if they do not have him.
Nix, who was activated off the disabled list on Sunday, made his second consecutive start Tuesday, but the return of Jeter could also allow the Yankees to slide Eduardo Nunez over from shortstop. Girardi said he would want to work Nunez out at third base for a couple of days before he made such a move, meaning that it is unlikely to happen before the Yankees play in San Diego on Friday.
Or, before then, the Yankees may make a trade, with the Phillies' Michael Young available.
The weekend series also remains a target for the return of outfielder Curtis Granderson, who has played nine games between stints on the disabled list.
Until then, the Yankees will soldier on, hoping to squeeze out a little more consistency and a few more wins out of their aged core.
"Hopefully, we can just will this thing, will it into the playoffs," Pettitte said. "I know I expect to go. I'm sure and I hope everyone in this room feels exactly the same way. The power of belief is awfully big and awfully important."
And, increasingly it seems, about all the Yankees have left.
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Associated Press
George Scott, standing left, with, from left, Carlton Fisk, Jim Rice and Butch Hobson after a 1977 game against Baltimore.
George Scott, whose slugging and sharp fielding at first base helped propel the Boston Red Sox to their 1967 "Impossible Dream" American League pennant, died on Sunday in Greenville, Miss. He was 69.
His death was confirmed by the Washington County coroner, Methel Johnson, The Delta Democrat-Times of Greenville reported. The Boston Herald said in November that Scott had diabetes and had difficulty walking.
Playing 14 seasons in the major leagues, the right-handed-batting Scott was a three-time All-Star and hit 271 home runs, or taters, as he called them. He was credited with popularizing the term in the 1970s, though its precise origin as a baseball expression is murky.
Scott hit 19 home runs, drove in 82 runs and batted .303 for the 1967 Red Sox. His batting average was fourth best in the American League.
The Sox won the pennant — their first in 21 years — on the season's final day after finishing in ninth place the previous year. The team's formidable roster also included Carl Yastrzemski, Tony Conigliaro and Rico Petrocelli and the pitching ace Jim Lonborg. But the Red Sox lost the World Series in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Listed at 6 feet 2 inches and 210 pounds, Scott was evidently well over that, to the consternation of Dick Williams, the manager of the '67 Sox. But Scott was agile at first base, winning eight Gold Glove awards. He also occasionally played third base.
Scott became known as the Boomer — a designation later bestowed on the free-spirited and outsized pitcher David Wells — for his prodigious home runs.
But a tater was a tater, no matter the length.
"Anything over 450 feet, I'd call it a long tater," Scott told The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Miss., in 2007. "A short tater was one that barely got over the wall."
George Charles Scott Jr. was born on March 23, 1944, in Greenville, the youngest of three children. His father, a laborer in cotton fields, died when he was a baby. His mother, Magnolia, worked several jobs to support the family. Scott was a baseball, basketball and football star in high school before being signed by the Red Sox in 1962.
As a rookie in 1966, he hit 27 home runs and was named an All-Star, though he led the league in strikeouts with 152.
Scott played for the Red Sox through the 1971 season and then was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers. He tied Reggie Jackson, then with the Oakland A's, for the league lead in home runs in 1975 with 36 and was No. 1 in runs batted in that season with 109.
He returned to the Red Sox in 1977, played two full seasons in his second stint in Boston, and then split the 1979 season with the Red Sox, the Kansas City Royals and the Yankees before retiring.
He had 1,992 hits, 1,051 R.B.I. and a .268 batting average for his career.
Despite his battles with his weight, he stole 10 bases for the '67 Red Sox and 16 for the '72 Brewers.
A list of survivors was not immediately available.
After leaving the major leagues, Scott played and managed in the Mexican League and managed independent teams in the minors.
He was honored by the Brewers in April with a bobblehead giveaway day. One of the most popular Red Sox players of his time, he was inducted into the team's Hall of Fame in 2006 and followed the Sox closely on TV.
"I don't watch the Brewers," he told The Boston Herald last year. "I don't watch the Royals. I don't watch the Yankees. But I watch the Red Sox, every pitch."
Joshua Lott for The New York Times
White Sox announcer Ken Harrelson is critical of the emphasis on sabermetrics. He called its rise "the biggest joke I've ever seen."
CHICAGO — Ken Harrelson was sitting in the television booth at U.S. Cellular Field last week before the Chicago White Sox hosted the Kansas City Royals when he broke into the story of how he would like to die. Harrelson, who goes by the nickname the Hawk, said he would be calling a White Sox game against the Yankees and Chicago first baseman Paul Konerko would step to the plate against C. C. Sabathia.
"Here's the pitch," Harrelson, 71, said, his voice rising. "That ball hit deep, way back. Curtis Granderson looks up, you can put it on the board — "
Before he finished his signature call, Harrelson slumped in his chair and dropped his head, feigning his perfect ending.
"I want to die in the booth," he said. "Just like that."
Harrelson, in his 38th year of broadcasting and 28th with the White Sox, is many things, perhaps none more than a showman. His nickname is derived from his prominent nose, and it comes with a healthy dose of flamboyance dating to his days of long hair and Nehru jackets when he played for the Boston Red Sox in the 1960s.
Today, in his 50th year in baseball, his look is more befitting of a grandfather, but he is no less a character. His broadcasting style has been alternately called nauseating and nostalgic — and rarely anything in between.
From the booth, where he works with the color man Steve Stone, he tells stories in a syrupy southern style about old friends and teammates like Mickey Mantle and Carl Yastrzemski; a walking, talking testament to baseball's golden age. In between, he shamelessly roots for the White Sox and routinely takes on umpires.
And these days, in an approach that could alternately be described as endearing or absurd, he has decided to take on the entire, and increasingly entrenched, world of statistical analysis. During a broadcast a couple of months ago, Harrelson went so far as to contend that those analytics — often referred to as sabermetrics — had cost too many good baseball people their jobs because they were unable to adjust to baseball's new way of making judgments.
That, in turn, led the MLB Network host Brian Kenny to devote a segment of his own show to chastising Harrelson, seeing his attack on sabermetrics as a predictable, and ridiculous, outcry by an old-timer stuck in a bygone era. And then Harrelson joined Kenny on the MLB Network for a debate during which Harrelson declared that the only statistic he cared about was something called "T.W.T.W."
That's right, not O.P.S. (on-base and slugging percentages combined) or WHIP (walks and hits per inning) or WAR (wins above replacement, as in the number of wins a player creates versus an average replacement player, and a tough one for a lot of people, not just Harrelson, to get a handle on) or anything else from the new category of measurements. Just T.W.T.W., or in long hand, the will to win. A category that, of course, cannot be in any way shape or form be determined by looking at numbers.
Kenny said that when Harrlelson unveiled his T.W.T.W. yardstick he was "completely incredulous."
Harrelson maintains that he does, in fact, like numbers and that sabermetrics does have a valued place in baseball, but that he would prefer it be a role much more limited that it is now and that too much deference is being paid in general to numbers crunching. He called its rise over the last decade "the biggest joke I've ever seen."
"Look down there at a guy like Gordon Beckham," he said, peering down at the White Sox' second baseman. "If you got someone who gets a chance to take him out on a double play — like me — I'm not going to take him out, I'm going to take him out into left field.
"So if the shortstop bobbles the ball, and I have a chance to get him, he knows that. Gordon will get busted and he'll take the hit. There's no number to define that in a player."
The role that advanced metrics has in an announcer's booth is, of course, different from the one it has in the office of a general manager, who needs to be conversant with every measurement there is these days, even if he doesn't believe in every one of them.
WASHINGTON — Coaches often tell players to practice the way you play.
That strategy didn't work out for Sloane Stephens.
Playing her first match since Wimbledon, the No. 2-seeded Stephens fell to Olga Puchkova 7-5, 6-3 in the first round of the Citi Open on Monday.
"Leading up, I didn't practice that great and I just wasn't feeling the ball out there," said Stephens, who lost to eventual Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli in the quarterfinals on July 2.
"Sometimes you have days like that and it's unfortunate that it came today."
The struggles started early for the 15th-ranked Stephens, particularly with her service game.
The highest-ranked American behind Serena Williams, Stephens was broken three times in each set by the unseeded and 88th-ranked Russian.
In the men's event, Mardy Fish rebounded from an early exit in Atlanta and losing the first set to defeat qualifier Matthew Ebden 2-6, 6-1, 6-3.
After falling behind 3-0 and 4-1 in the first set, the 20-year-old Stephens worked her way back into a 5-5 tie, only to falter in the end.
After Puchkova held serve, Stephens could not do the same, unable to win a single point en route to dropping the set. The final set was more of the same.
"I couldn't really get it together, but there will be more tournaments, so it's OK," Stephens said.
She dealt with an abdominal injury earlier this summer, but said it wasn't a factor on Monday.
"I felt fine. When I'm injured, I play great. When I'm healthy I can't hit a ball on the court."
Battling back from a heart condition, Fish only played four matches in 2013 before facing Ebden, including a first-round loss last week.
After dropping the opening set, the 31-year-old Fish turned the momentum by winning the lengthy opening game of the second set. He capped the service break with a cross-court winner and took the next three games for a 4-0 lead.
Fish broke Ebden at 3-2 in the second set, leading to his first victory since March.
Fish credited his practice performance for his positive outcome.
"It feels real good. I've played well in practice, put in a lot of hours in the past, you know, I'd be remiss not to say months. But it's been months. Yeah, it's satisfying," Fish said.
Defending champion and No. 7 seed Magdalena Rybarikova rallied past Christina McHale for a 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory.
Playing with a wrap on her left thigh because of a lower back injury, Rybarikova twice lost serve in the opening set. The 43rd-ranked Slovak rebounded as McHale also struggled on her serve.
"Her game went down and I had my chances," said Rybarikova, who broke McHale three times in the final set. "Especially in the third set, I really played my game."
Along with Stephens, McHale is one of 11 American women ranked in the top 100.
In other first-round matches, American James Blake fell 6-2, 7-6 (6) to Marinko Matosevic while 2011 champion Radek Stepanek defeated American Steve Johnson 7-6 (3), 6-3. Xavier Malisse, Somdev Devvarman, David Goffin and Paula Ormaechea also advanced.
The United States national team member Stuart Holden has a torn right anterior cruciate ligament, yet another major knee injury for the unlucky midfielder. Holden was hurt early in the Americans' 1-0 victory over Panama in the Gold Cup final Sunday.
MIAMI — Baseball players may sometimes seem stone-faced and even-keeled, but they are not oblivious. That was how Mets Manager Terry Collins described it, anyway, when asked early Monday about his team's inability to figure out the last-place Miami Marlins this season.
The players knew very well, Collins said, that they were 3-8 against the Marlins before beginning a four-game series here Monday. They also knew very well that they should do better. On Monday the Mets displayed the doggedness needed to pull out a come-from-behind 6-5 victory at Marlins Park.
It was a moral victory more than anything, a should-win game over the National League's worst team. But it was satisfying all the same. It improved the Mets' record to 47-56, dropped the Marlins to 40-64 and restored a positive vibe to the Mets, who had lost three straight over the weekend to the Washington Nationals.
"We've lost three in a row, we're not exactly a bundle of joy at the moment," Collins said after the game. About the comeback, he added, "It brought us out of a huge hole, and I think it's a great step moving forward."
The Mets turned the tables with a thrilling seventh-inning rally. Eric Young Jr. drilled a one-out double to left field, and he scored when Daniel Murphy poked a single, also to left. David Wright popped out to right field, but Murphy advanced to third on a stolen base and a wild pitch. Marlon Byrd rolled a hard grounder up the middle to drive in Murphy and tie the score at 5-5.
"It seems like every year there's one team that just has your number, doesn't matter who you are," Byrd said about the Marlins, who beat the Mets five consecutive times before Monday.
Byrd helped ensure there would be a different outcome this time. Ike Davis came up next and sent a line drive to right field, setting Byrd loose around the bases. The relay throw home was on point, and so Byrd slid feet-first as the ball arrived to the plate, his hands above his head, pantomiming a safe call, before he even stopped moving. When the umpire did the same, the Mets were up, 6-5.
"I honestly didn't think he had a chance, but he was running his butt off, so that was awesome," Davis said.
He added about the victory: "It's big, especially, here. Obviously the Nats kind of whupped us a little bit. But we've struggled winning here, and it seems like every game we play here comes down to the last hitter."
It was so Monday, too, as closer Bobby Parnell induced a hard groundout from Giancarlo Stanton to strand runners on the corners to seal the win.
The comeback saved Jeremy Hefner from a third straight loss. Over an eight-start stretch beginning June 4, Hefner's 1.76 earned run average topped the major leagues. But his season has taken an erratic turn. In his last two starts before Monday, he pitched a combined six and a third innings while giving up 13 earned runs.
On Monday, Hefner issued a career-high five walks while pitching five and a third uneven innings. He was not particularly sharp, but neither was the Mets' defense. Hefner gave up five runs, but two were unearned.
Hefner was handed a 3-0 lead in the top of the third, after Murphy hit a two-run single and Wright added a run-scoring double down the line. Those were the only runs the Mets scored off Jacob Turner, the Marlins' starter.
Hefner did not allow a hit until the fourth inning, but the first one opened the floodgates. Stanton hit a leadoff double, and he scored one out later when Ed Lucas looped a triple to deep center field. Hefner hit Donovan Solano, but after he induced a pop-up, he got Turner to ground a ball to shortstop and seemed to have escaped the jam.
But Omar Quintanilla, so sure-handed this season, bobbled the ball between his legs, and both runs scored, tying the game at 3-3. Two innings later, the Marlins built upon a leadoff walk and went ahead, 5-3, on Jeff Mathis's two-run single.
Hefner said he would need to continue to tweak his mechanics.
"It was a grind today," Hefner said. "I'm going to have games like that."
He added, "They're much easier to take after a win, though."
INSIDE PITCH
Jon Niese joined the Mets at Marlins Park on Monday afternoon to throw a bullpen session. Niese, who has been on the disabled list since June 21 with a partially torn rotator cuff, began a rehabilitation assignment last Saturday, pitching two innings. Niese suggested he would need only two more appearances before he could rejoin the Mets. His next start will come Thursday at Class A.
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OCEANPORT, N.J. — Verrazano's trainer, the usually stoic Todd Pletcher, was hugging and high-fiving anyone who wandered into his path in the winner's circle at Monmouth Park on Sunday. The New Jersey residents Kevin Scatuorchio and Bryan Sullivan, managers of the colt's main ownership group, Let's Go Stable, swapped the Yankees caps they favor for the backside with ones bearing their colt's name, and they were all smiles, too, taking time to breathe in the warm ocean air.
They had every reason to be exuberant: Verrazano had just won the $1 million Haskell Invitational by nine and three-quarter lengths, the largest margin of victory in 46 runnings of Monmouth's signature race.
For Scatuorchio, who used to work at this sun-washed track in high school, and Sullivan, who took his wife, Courtney, the sister of Scatuorchio, on their first date here, this was as good as it gets.
"You dream of this, and to have it happen today is unbelievable," said Scatuorchio, with his father, James, a longtime owner, looking on.
Verrazano, the morning-line favorite, who was ridden by John Velazquez, took the lead from the Preakness winner Oxbow midway on the far turn. He covered the one and one-eighth miles in 1 minute 50.68 seconds and paid $4.20 on a $2 bet to win. Power Broker, trained by Bob Baffert, finished second; Micromanage, also trained by Pletcher, finished third.
The second half of the season in the 3-year-old division got into full swing this weekend, with two of the three winners of the Triple Crown races prepping for the $1 million Travers Stakes on Aug. 24 at Saratoga.
The Pletcher-trained Palace Malice did his part, winning the Grade II Jim Dandy on Saturday at Saratoga. But Oxbow, who finished second to Palace Malice in the Belmont his last time out, could muster only a fourth-place finish. He was eased up by the veteran jockey Gary Stevens after the wire and was taken to the barn for X-rays.
Orb, the Kentucky Derby winner, did not race this weekend and is in training for the Travers. If the Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas decides Oxbow is healthy enough to run — although that is considered unlikely — it will be the first Travers since 1982 to feature three horses who won a Triple Crown race.
The fight for top 3-year-old honors was thought to be a three-way battle among Orb, Oxbow and Palace Malice. But on Sunday, Verrazano made quite the case after a disastrous outing in the Derby on May 4.
"He made a huge statement today," Pletcher said. "This was one of, if not the most, impressive performance by any 3-year-old this year."
He won the Wood Memorial on April 6 at Aqueduct and went into Churchill Downs with a 4-0 record. He was expected to be the morning-line favorite for the Derby until Orb ran away with that honor after a sensational workout earlier in the week. Verrazano never fired on a sloppy track and finished 14th.
He next raced on June 16, earning a nine-and-a-quarter-length victory in the Grade III Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth. He ran the mile and a sixteenth in 1:41.72, but his main rival, the runner-up to Oxbow in the Preakness, Itsmyluckyday, pulled up on the backstretch with an injury.
For Scatuorchio and Sullivan, this victory, at this track — the Shore's Greatest Stretch, as it is called — represented vindication for a Derby gone wrong. Verrazano is now 6 for 7, with Velazquez aboard for all his races. After the Derby, Velazquez was second-guessed for his choice of riding Verrazano instead of Orb, whom he guided to victory in the Florida Derby in March. Still, his faith in the colt never wavered.
"We had the perfect trip," Velazquez said. "He was incredible today. When I asked him, he was right there."
Scatuorchio came up with the name Verrazano after passing under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which connects Brooklyn and Staten Island, on a ferry ride from Manhattan to his home in Red Bank, N.J. The connection to the bridge grew when Meghan, now his wife, who was in Chicago at the time, was set to run in the New York City Marathon, and he sent her a photograph of where she would start the race. She framed it for Scatuorchio, and he looks at it every day, thinking of her, and of his colt's whirlwind journey.
Before the Derby, Scatuorchio said he had overheard people on the ferry talking about Verrazano; Sullivan said his excitement for the colt would lead him to make detours to drive over the bridge.
"We would like for people to embrace him and make him their own," Scatuorchio said in May.
Verrazano might become a topic of conversation again after this race, especially with Scatuorchio and Sullivan donating 1.5 percent of the winnings to the Foundation to Save the Jersey Shore, which aids those affected by Hurricane Sandy.
Baffert had won six Haskells, including the previous three, but Power Broker, with Rosie Napravnik aboard, could not catch the blazing Verrazano. "We would have liked to have won, but nobody was going to catch Verrazano," Baffert said.
The crowd of 36,294 knew it, Pletcher knew it, and most important, Scatuorchio and Sullivan, two Jersey guys still dreaming big, knew it. "This is something we'll cherish for a long, long time," Sullivan said.
NOTES
The 2012 Florida Derby winner Take Charge Indy was pulled up by jockey Gary Stevens while near the lead of the ninth race, the Grade II Monmouth Cup. Stevens said he heard a loud pop around the half-mile pole. "He wanted to continue, but I pulled him up," Stevens said. He was taken off the track in a van. He sustained a left front condylar fracture and was scheduled for surgery, according to his owners, WinStar Farm. The 2011 Louisiana Derby winner Pants on Fire won the mile and a sixteenth race by one and three-quarter lengths over Hymn Book.
MIAMI — Tino Martinez resigned as the Miami Marlins' hitting coach hours after complaints by players that he verbally abused them became public.
Tino Martinez, the Marlins' hitting coach, on Sunday. Martinez was in his first season as a professional coach.
Keep up with the latest news on The Times's baseball blog.
Martinez was in his first season as a professional coach. He sat in the dugout Sunday during a 3-2 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates and then met with Marlins officials and resigned.
"I have made some comments to certain players at certain times that I thought was more constructive criticism," he said. "Obviously, they didn't feel that way, and it kind of backfired on me."
Martinez said he once touched a player in anger, grabbing the rookie Derek Dietrich by the jersey in the batting cage early this season. Dietrich, recently demoted to Class AA Jacksonville, was among the players to complain.
Martinez said he offered to resign earlier, but the team owner Jeffrey Loria wanted him to stay on the job. When the complaints by players became public Sunday in a Miami Herald article, Martinez decided he should resign.
Martinez was a four-time World Series champion in seven seasons with the Yankees. In a 16-year playing career with four teams, he batted .271 with 339 home runs.
For the first time since 2007, the United States national team is the Gold Cup Champion, its title secured with a 1-0 victory over an upstart Panama team on Sunday at Soldier Field in Chicago.
It was not the most pleasant game to watch, as Panama had a clear defensive game plan from the start. While most Concacaf teams tend to bunker against the United States, Panama is clearly better at it than most. In that sense it made Sunday's final a better-played game than it appeared, because it was a true tactical battle that the U.S. handled well. Patience was the key for the Americans, and the players never appeared frustrated as the scoreless deadlock dragged on deep into the second half.
In the first half, the United States dominated possession but had nothing to show for it. In the second half it increased the pace even more and began to create dangerous opportunities. The U.S. team always looked confident it was going to score.
By winning the tournament, the U.S. team will have the opportunity to face the winner of the 2015 Gold Cup (provided it is not the United States) for an opportunity to play in the 2017 Confederations Cup. In addition, several players made strong cases to be part Jurgen Klinsmann's plans as it builds towards next year's World Cup in Brazil. Mix Diskerud had never played for the U.S. team except for friendlies, but his play during the tournament proved that he should be considered. Kyle Beckerman is not an offensive threat but his defense always gave the Americans an edge.
The most noteworthy takeaway from the Gold Cup, however, was that Landon Donovan is truly an exceptional player. After Donovan's four-month sabbatical, Klinsmann was reluctant to bring him back into the U.S. camp. Donovan, however, dominated the tournament and showed that he is back to his old self. When Donovan is inserted into the top United States roster along with Clint Demspey, Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore, Jermaine Jones and Fabian Johnson, Klinsmann will have the building blocks for a dangerous team.
The ratings (on a scale of 1, diabolical; to 10, world class):
Nick Rimando: For his first shutout of the Gold Cup, Rimando did not have much to do. While he faced little danger, he commanded his area well and his distribution was solid. Rating: 5.5
Michael Parkhurst: Gradually improving throughout the Gold Cup, Parkhurst had a strong final. His passing was crisp and he was aggressive when he attacked. Defensively, he was rock on the right side. With Steve Cherundolo coming off surgery and Timothy Chandler not fully integrated into the U.S. team, it would not be a surprise if Parkhurst became the first-choice right back for the time being. Rating: 6.5
Clarence Goodson: It was a very good tournament for Goodson, who developed a nice chemistry with Matt Besler in central defense. Goodson was dominant in the air and solid with his passing out of the back, and he won his battles against Blas Perez, which limited Panama's attack. He greatly improved his stock. Rating: 7.0
Matt Besler: It has been a great year for Besler, who earned his first cap in January but over the past seven months has risen to the top of the depth chart in central defense. Against Panama he showed why he will probably be a starter with the top team. His passing was stellar and he helped in the possession game. Rating: 6.5
DaMarcus Beasley: Beasley is still adjusting to the left back position, and while it will never be his best spot, he showed that he can play there in important games. Against Panama he was dangerous moving up the left side, and his speed allowed him to recover defensively. Rating: 6.0
Kyle Beckerman: Defensively it was another impressive performance from Beckerman, the Real Salt Lake central midfielder. Panama was never dangerous up the middle of the field, and that was his primary job. Offensively he is not flashy, but he remains a very good defensive midfielder. He won a lot of balls and helped the team in its overwhelming possession edge. Rating: 7.0 and man of the match.
Stuart Holden: It was a short outing for Holden, who left the game early in the first half with what was described as a sprained knee. He has been battling injuries for most of the past two years and will be further evaluated this week. Rating: Incomplete
Alejandro Bedoya: When the United States was struggling to break down Panama's well-organized defense, Bedoya was the most energetic attacker and the only player able to get himself into dangerous positions until the game opened up in the second half. His pass to Donovan in the 69th minute produced the game's only goal, even if Brek Shea was the player who touched it into the net. Rating: 6.5
Joe Corona: After sitting out the semifinal, Corona returned to the starting lineup, though it was not his best game. He struggled to create opportunities against Panama's tough defense, and while he had some nice moments, he was not a major factor in the attack. It is obvious that playing on the wings is not his best position. Rating: 5.0
Landon Donovan: For Panama to have any chance at winning the game, it had to neutralize Donovan. For the most part that plan worked, as Donovan had his worst game of the tournament. He missed a point-blank header in the second half and even whiffed on Bedoya's cross on the goal. Despite that, he improved as the game progressed and was the focal point of the offense in the second half. He wasn't the best player in the game, but he was the best player throughout the tournament. Rating: 6.0 and player of the tournament.
Eddie Johnson: After two strong performances in the knock-out stages, Johnson had a poor game against Panama. He was rarely dangerous and missed an absolute sitter in the 84th minute. He helped maintain possession in his hold-up play but his frequent back-passing seemed to deflate the attack. Rating: 4.5
Substitutes
Mix Diskerud: Coming on for Holden in the 23rd minute, Diskerud was initially rusty, but he had a strong second half as the American attack came to life. He was terrific on both sides of the ball and was instrumental as the offense improved after halftime. A question mark before the tournament, Diskerud improved his chances at being part of the team for the remaining World Cup qualifiers. Rating: 6.5
Brek Shea: Subbing into the game in the 68th minute, Shea made an instant impact by scoring a goal less than a minute after stepping onto the field. Yes, it was not the most difficult goal, and the rolling ball probably would have gone in even if he hadn't touched it, but his overall appearance was good. He added much-needed width to the U.S. attack and sent in a series of good crosses. After a poor outing in the group stages against Cuba, Shea rebounded nicely. Rating: 6.5
MNT vs. Panama: Brek Shea Goal - July 28, 2013
Omar Gonzalez: The Los Angeles Galaxy defender replaced Bedoya in the 89th minute. Rating: Incomplete.
Coaching
Jurgen Klinsmann/Martin Vasquez/Andreas Herzog: While Klinsmann was suspended for the final, he did a good job preparing the team for the final. The U.S. was patient in breaking down a well-organized Panamanian defense, and the defense made few mistakes. The team did not lose focus despite losing Holden early in the game with a knee injury, and the Shea substitution paid off immediately — as did most of the U.S team's substitutes throughout the tournament. The United States had the most talented players in the tournament, but the coaching staff made sure it had the best team. Rating: 7.5
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Yasiel Puig homered with two outs in the 11th inning to give the host Los Angeles Dodgers a 1-0 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday.
Cincinnati pitchers set a franchise record with 20 strikeouts. Puig, Adrian Gonzalez, Hanley Ramirez and Tim Federowicz each struck out three times as the Dodgers established their highest single-game total for strikeouts since the franchise moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles after the 1957 season.
BRAVES 5, CARDINALS 2 Jason Heyward homered and drove in two runs to help host Atlanta beat St. Louis, capping its first three-game sweep of the Cardinals at home in 10 years.
ROCKIES 6, BREWERS 5 Troy Tulowitzki homered early, then doubled to start a two-run rally in the eighth inning that sent host Colorado over Milwaukee. Michael Cuddyer, Dexter Fowler and Corey Dickerson also homered for the Rockies.
MARLINS 3, PIRATES 2 Jose Fernandez had a team-rookie-record 13 strikeouts in a pitching duel with Gerrit Cole, and host Miami beat Pittsburgh.
CUBS 2, GIANTS 1 Travis Wood allowed four hits in seven innings and had a homer among his two hits in helping visiting Chicago complete a three-game sweep.
PADRES 1, DIAMONDBACKS 0 Tyson Ross outpitched Patrick Corbin with eight dominant innings, and visiting San Diego closed out its first winning road trip of the season.
TIGERS 12, PHILLIES 4 Jhonny Peralta's grand slam capped an eight-run sixth inning for host Detroit, and the Tigers overcame Miguel Cabrera's ejection in a win against Philadelphia. Cabrera was tossed after arguing balls and strikes while batting with the bases loaded in the third.
RED SOX 5, ORIOLES 0 Jon Lester allowed four hits in seven innings, David Ortiz went 4 for 4 with his 20th home run and visiting Boston beat Baltimore to earn its first series win over the Orioles in two years. The Red Sox took a half-game lead in the American League East over Tampa Bay, which lost to the Yankees.
ATHLETICS 10, ANGELS 6 Yoenis Cespedes drove in four runs on his most productive day since he won the Home Run Derby, and host Oakland rallied from five runs down.
ROYALS 4, WHITE SOX 2 Alex Gordon hit a two-run homer in the 12th inning, and visiting Kansas City beat Chicago for its sixth straight victory.
INDIANS 6, RANGERS 0 Ubaldo Jimenez pitched eight scoreless innings, and host Cleveland shut out Texas for the second straight game.
MARINERS 6, TWINS 4 Nick Franklin homered twice, including a three-run shot, and host Seattle held off Minnesota.
BLUE JAYS 2, ASTROS 1 Colby Rasmus drove in Emilio Bonifacio with a game-winning single in the ninth inning for host Toronto.
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STANFORD, Calif. — Dominika Cibulkova hopes her latest WTA Tour final goes better than her last. Agnieszka Radwanska would love to make her relive that nightmare.
Both will get the chance Sunday.
Cibulkova coasted past Sorana Cirstea 6-4, 6-0 in the Bank of the West Classic semifinals Saturday. A few hours later, the top-seeded Radwanska overcame a shaky start to beat American Jamie Hampton 6-3, 6-2 with relative ease.
The third-seeded Cibulkova has won twice on tour and last advanced to a final in January in Sydney, where she lost 6-0, 6-0 to Radwanska. It was the first whitewash in a final since November 2006 and only one in Cibulkova's career.
"Tennis is a lot about mentally," Cibulkova said. "If you will see that match, you will not believe it can be like that because I was putting pressure all the time. All the first six or seven games of that match I had game point or break point, and I just couldn't make it. It was like something really bad was happening. I was down 6-0, 3-0 and I was only thinking about one thing — just to make one game, and it didn't happen. It was really bad."
Now Cibulkova will have a chance for a double-dose of redemption.
Radwanska, ranked No. 4 in the world, has 12 singles titles — including 10 on hard court. She won back-to-back tournaments at Auckland and Sydney to start the year and hadn't advanced to a final since she crushed Cibulkova down under.
Radwanska regrouped against Hampton after dropping her serve twice in the first set, breaking back in the following game both times. The Wimbledon semifinalist earned the decisive break at 5-3 by forcing Hampton to sail a backhand long.
The smooth-swinging Polish player put away the match with an overhead winner for a service break at 2-1 in the second set, then pushed Hampton — who beat her earlier this year at Eastbourne — around the court to grab the next three games and set up a finals rematch she believes will offer more drama than earlier this year.
"Didn't really expect that, especially in the final," Radwanska said. "She was playing great matches in Sydney and then suddenly I think she was a little bit too nervous in the final. And then game by game she was getting (frustrated) too much. But I don't think she's the kind of player that can do that again."
Cibulkova's game has seemed to come a long way the last seven months.
In the semifinals, Cibulkova controlled the pace and played patient and near-perfect tennis against an opponent who folded fast. The third-seeded Cibulkova saved all six break points in the first set and often stayed back on the baseline waiting for Cirstea to make mistakes.
The approach helped Cibulkova go ahead 5-3 in the first set and sweep the second set to cruise into the final on the sun-splashed Stanford campus. Cibulkova has played the event the past six years and had never advanced beyond the semifinals, losing to Cirstea in the quarterfinals a year ago.
This time, her penetrating strokes had Cirstea constantly on the move. The hard-hitting Cibulkova forced her to net a forehand and then a backhand wide for a break at 4-3 before holding off five breaks in her next service game to take command.
With one loss avenged, Cibulkova now has a shot for another in consecutive days.
Cibulkova, No. 25 in the world rankings, won in Carlsbad last year and in Moscow in 2011 for her only WTA titles. But the loss in Sydney had her questioning herself for weeks.
"It really affected my game for a few tournaments after," she said. "It was a pretty bad experience. When I came to the Australian Open, the first match I was just thinking, 'OK, you have to make a game now because it's really important. It wasn't easy. It kept coming back to me a few tournaments, but I think it's over."
While some players might've shied away from the experience, Cibulkova faced it firsthand. She watched the replay of the match — "just the first set," she said — and saw her confidence evaporate with every stroke.
Asked why she would put herself through watching such a devastating defeat, she replied, "I have to learn from it."
___
Dax McCarty scored on a header four minutes into extra time to lift the Red Bulls to a 4-3 win over Real Salt Lake in Harrison, N.J. Fabian Espindola scored two goals on penalty kicks for the Red Bulls. Tim Cahill also scored for the Red Bulls, who blew an early 2-0 lead before rallying.
Novellist, a 13-2 shot trained in Germany by Andreas Wohler, won the $928,000 first-place prize in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes in record time at Ascot Racecourse. The Irish Derby victor Trading Leather took second, five lengths behind, with Hillstar three-quarters of a length back in third. Novellist blitzed down the Ascot straight to smash the course record in 2 minutes 24.60 seconds under Johnny Murtagh, who won his fourth King George.
Miguel Cabrera homered in his first at-bat after returning from a hip injury, and Max Scherzer held Philadelphia to one hit in six innings to become baseball's first 15-game winner, as the host Detroit Tigers routed the Phillies, 10-0, on Saturday.
The Phillies lost their seventh in a row.
Scherzer threw only 75 pitches. He was one of several stars pulled early after the game got out of hand.
"It gives me a chance to regroup," said Scherzer, who celebrated his 29th birthday Saturday. "It was a 10-0 game, and there really wasn't much more to accomplish in the game tonight."
Detroit scored five runs in the first inning and three in the second off Raul Valdes, who started because Cliff Lee was out with a stiff neck. Cabrera's homer in the first was his 32nd of the year, and he later drove in two more runs to increase his season total to 99 runs batted in.
Matt Tuiasosopo hit a three-run homer in the first.
BRAVES 2, CARDINALS 0 Andrelton Simmons hit a two-run double in the eighth inning, and host Atlanta, boosted by Julio Teheran's sharp outing, beat St. Louis in a matchup of division leaders.
Teheran allowed two hits in seven innings, striking out six and walking one.
DODGERS 4, REDS 1 Hyun-Jin Ryu gave up two hits in seven innings and retired his last 13 batters, Skip Schumaker hit a tiebreaking home run and host Los Angeles beat Cincinnati to increase its National League West lead to a game and a half over Arizona.
Ryu had nine strikeouts, all in a stretch of 13 batters.
PIRATES 7, MARLINS 4 Michael McKenry had a career-best four hits and drove in two runs, Neil Walker and Garrett Jones each added two R.B.I., and visiting Pittsburgh beat Miami.
McKenry, who came into the night batting .191, raised his average 26 points with a double and three singles. Walker added three hits for the Pirates, the N.L. wild-card leaders.CUBS 1, GIANTS 0 Nate Schierholtz homered off his former teammate Sergio Romo with one out in the ninth inning to lift visiting Chicago.
Schierholtz worked a full count off Romo before hitting a towering blast into the right field stands to hand Romo his second blown save in two games.
PADRES 12, DIAMONDBACKS 3 Andrew Cashner threw six solid innings and hit his first career home run to help lead visiting San Diego over Arizona.
Chris Denorfia and Chase Headley added back-to-back homers, Yonder Alonso drove in four runs and Carlos Quentin had two R.B.I. for the Padres.
INDIANS 1, RANGERS 0 Michael Bourn homered to lead off the first inning, and Justin Masterson took a shutout into the eighth inning, outdueling Yu Darvish in host Cleveland's win.
Masterson struck out eight and allowed five hits in seven and two-thirds innings. That was enough to beat Darvish, who struck out 11 and held the Indians to 3 hits in six innings.
ROYALS 1, WHITE SOX 0 Wade Davis pitched into the eighth inning, and visiting Kansas City beat Chris Sale and Chicago for its fifth consecutive victory.
Davis allowed four hits — all singles — and walked three in his longest outing of the season.
RED SOX 7, ORIOLES 3 Stephen Drew hit two homers and drove in five runs to power Boston past host Baltimore.
Shane Victorino also homered for the Red Sox, who won for the fourth time in 10 games and remained a half-game behind first-place Tampa Bay in the American League East.
ATHLETICS 3, ANGELS 1 Derek Norris had a pinch-hit two-run homer in the seventh inning to lift Oakland at home.
Jed Lowrie drove in a run for the A's, who won their second straight win and fifth in seven games.
TWINS 4, MARINERS 0 Brian Dozier and Justin Morneau homered, Samuel Deduno pitched seven scoreless innings and Minnesota won at Seattle.
ASTROS 8, BLUE JAYS 6 Chris Carter hit a three-run homer, Justin Maxwell and Matt Dominguez added solo shots and Houston beat host Toronto to end a three-game losing streak.
Dallas Keuchel pitched a season-high seven and a third innings for his first victory since June 16.
RANGERS PITCHER ATTACKED The Rangers said pitcher Tanner Scheppers sustained facial bruises after being attacked while walking in downtown Cleveland on Thursday night.
The Rangers said Scheppers sustained a bruised eye. He was unavailable for Friday's 11-inning loss to the Indians.
PUJOLS'S FOOT EVALUATED The Angels slugger Albert Pujols returned to Los Angeles for further testing on his sore left foot.
Pujols has been dealing with plantar fasciitis all season. He reinjured his foot running to first base after singling in the ninth on Friday.
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Welington Castillo smashed a double for the Chicago Cubs late in a game in the 2010 season, his bat exploding on impact with the ball. A long shard of wood flew at a teammate, Tyler Colvin, sprinting home from third base, impaling him a few inches from his heart. Though Colvin scored, his season was over.
But the season of the maple bat shows no signs of ending. Ever since 2001, when Barry Bonds broke the single-season major-league home run record using maple bats, more and more players have abandoned the ash bats favored by Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron and Derek Jeter. About 64 percent of the 60,000 bats sold to major-league teams last year were maple.
"It feels different than ash," said Michael T. Rains, acting director of the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wis., part of the United States Forest Service. "It feels like you can swing the bat faster."
Vince Malta, who authenticates major-league bats for collectors, added: "A maple bat has a hard surface. It's got more pop."
Trouble is, while all bats may break, some maple bats did not so much break as explode. Bits of them have ended up in Colvin's chest, and in the faces of fans in ballparks in New York and Kansas City. For five years, Major League Baseball has been trying to end the era of the shattered bat.
Now, it seems, they are more than halfway home. In 2008, statistics show, 5,000 bats broke in hitters' hands, with 2,500 of those shattering in what wood technicians call "multipiece failures," and those in the line of fire call less printable names. Last year, the number of broken bats was down only slightly, but the number of shattered bats dropped to just over 1,200.
The change is the result of an unusual partnership between Major League Baseball and the Forest Service, whose scientists looked deep into maple's core to find why it was so brittle, and how it could be made less so. Giving up the wood entirely was deemed out of the question.
As David E. Kretschmann, the Forest Service scientist who led a team of colleagues working on the maple mystery, said, "If someone's making millions of dollars using a certain thing, they're not going to mess with it."
What Mr. Kretschmann's team told Major League Baseball's equipment specialists is that it was harder to follow the orientation of the grain of maple wood than of ash. In ash trees, the veinlike vessels that carry water up through the trunk are larger and arrayed in clear, almost regimental form in the growth rings.
In maple trees, these vessels are smaller and scattered through the dense wood fiber nearly randomly. This makes them harder to see, and harder to follow when carving billets — the round cylinders that are carved into bats — out of a tree. The more that the wood grain in the cut wood deviates from its original slope, the more shatter-prone the bat, he said.
With Mr. Kretschmann's information in hand, baseball changed the specifications for its maple bats. Handles had to be thicker. The wood had to meet a minimum density. The weight-to-length ratio could not fall below specified limits. And the grain in the bat could not deviate more than 3 percent off the true path of the grain in the original wood.
To ensure that the grain was easy to see and measure, a black ink dot was added, allowing the ink to bleed into the grain and make it more visible.
Chuck Schupp, the director of pro baseball sales and promotions for Hillerich & Bradsby, the makers of the Louisville Slugger bat, credited these rules for lessening the risk of flying maple shards in ballparks. "Maple's been around for 13 years," he said. "The rules helped make it less a question of safety." Mr. Schupp said that his company has about 50 percent of the bat market.
Don Fine, the president of Viper Bats in Washington State, a boutique operation that sells to teams like the Philadelphia Phillies and Seattle Mariners, said that he has changed the way he cuts the cylindrical billets out of the wood, mimicking the action of splitting a fence rail.
Mr. Fine said ballplayers are very conscious of the shattered bat issue, and will quickly call if they feel a bat has shattered because of poor construction. "Most of the guys will know. 'That was an outside slider. I shouldn't have swung at it. Drat, I broke my bat.' "
"But if they are hitting it on the sweet spot and it's still shattering," he said, "they will sent it back."
The decline in shattered bats has continued for the past four years, and it can be measured by the new statistic Mr. Kretschmann's team has given to baseball, a sport famous for them: multipiece failures per game. In 2008, the MPF rate was about 1.0. Through the first 1,300 games of 2009, after the rules were changed, it was 0.69, he reported.
Through the first 1,300 games of 2013, it is 0.47.
This is, however, a downside to the trend, at least for Mr. Fine at Viper Bats. "It's created a longer business cycle for wood bats," he said. "A guy might have bought six of them every summer until last year. Now he's buying three."
D.C. United and city officials signed an agreement for a new $300 million soccer stadium. The city and the team would split the cost of the stadium, which is tentatively scheduled to open in 2016 in an industrial section of southwest Washington. D.C. United, which plays in RFK Stadium, had considered relocating to suburban Maryland, Virginia or Baltimore.
The Knicks re-signed Kenyon Martin to a one-year deal. Martin, a tough, reliable forward throughout his 13-year career, will make about $1.4 million next year on a veteran's minimum contract, which was all the over-the-salary-cap Knicks could offer him. The move gives the Knicks more frontcourt depth behind Tyson Chandler and Andrea Bargnani.
Martin, 35, joined the team in February last season on a 10-day contract before becoming a valuable role player. He averaged 7.2 points and 5.3 rebounds in 18 games during the regular season. He averaged 5.3 points and 4.5 rebounds in 12 playoffs games.
In her first major international competition, 14-year-old Si Yajie of China edged the four-time Olympic gold medalist Chen Ruolin of China on the 10-meter platform diving event at the world championships in Barcelona, Spain.
Russia made it five for five in synchronized swimming as Svetlana Romashina and Svetlana Kolesnichenko easily won the duet.
Germany scored a dominating victory in the 5-kilometer open water team competition. The United States won the inaugural team event at the 2011 worlds but finished sixth this time.
Danielle Adams had 20 points and 8 rebounds, and the San Antonio Silver Stars defeated the visiting Liberty, 65-53. Cappie Pondexter had 20 points for the Liberty (7-11), who have lost four of five. Liberty Coach Bill Laimbeer was ejected with 38 seconds left in the first half after arguing a shot-clock violation.
■ Brittney Griner will miss Saturday's W.N.B.A. All-Star Game while recovering from a sprained left knee. (AP)
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Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III passed a perfunctory conditioning test on the eve of training camp and then declared he has "nothing left to prove" — at least physically — in his return from major knee surgery. That does not mean he is all the way back. Griffin said he would not participate in 11-on-11 drills in the early days of camp and most likely would not play in preseason games.
■ Receiver Mike Williams reported for training camp with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and promptly signed a six-year, $40.25 million deal. Williams, 26, had 63 catches for 996 yards and 9 touchdowns last season.
Frank Franklin Ii/Associated Press
Eric Young Jr. checking on Braves pitcher Tim Hudson, who was covering first base when Young stepped on his right ankle. "I'm bummed," Young said.
Eric Young Jr. sat quietly facing his locker with his chin resting in his hand, as he fiddled absently with his cellphone. About an hour after he was involved in a gruesome collision with Braves starter Tim Hudson, Young was still shaken.
"I'm bummed," Young said. "You never want to injure anybody."
The play occurred in the eighth inning of Atlanta's 8-2 win over the Mets on Wednesday, nearing the conclusion of a vintage gem by the 38-year-old Hudson, one of the game's most accomplished and respected starters.
Young hit a ground ball toward first base that bounced off Freddie Freeman's chest. Hudson took a toss from Freeman as he went to cover first, and a hustling Young landed squarely on Hudson's right foot as they met at the bag. Hudson fell to the ground in agony, and the Braves announced after the game that X-rays taken at Citi Field revealed a fractured right ankle and that Hudson would have surgery in Atlanta once the swelling went down. The Braves did not have a timetable on Hudson's recovery.
"As I came down, I knew I didn't get any of the base," Young said. "I got all of his foot."
Young immediately knew it was bad, and he made a U-turn to check on Hudson. Hudson's teammates circled around him as medical staffers arrived, and then eventually a cart and stretcher.
Mets third baseman David Wright joined Young in the circle of players gathered around Hudson.
"He's one of the good guys in the game and to see him go down like that, and know something was wrong, it's tough to watch," Wright said. "You just wish him a speedy recovery."
Before the injury, Hudson was devastating on Wednesday, confounding the Mets with more of the stuff that has earned him 204 wins over his 15-year career.
He allowed four hits and struck out nine, his most since June 2011. He did not allow a run until the eighth, when the Mets' first two batters reached base. Hudson then struck out Juan Lagares before inducing the ground ball from Young that ended his night, and possibly his season.
Reliever Luis Avilan gave up a two-run double to Daniel Murphy after Hudson was carted off the field.
Before that, it was all Atlanta, which pounded Mets starter Jeremy Hefner for six runs (five earned) in four and a third innings. It was the second consecutive poor outing for Hefner, giving the Mets some reason for pause. After an eight-start stretch in which Hefner led the majors in earned run average (1.76), he has stumbled out of the All-Star break, as if the layoff had lasted for months.
"It was very similar to the circumstances we've talked about with guys like Hef or anybody who lives and dies with command," Manager Terry Collins said. "Balls up and balls out over the plate — what we saw earlier in the season was happening today."
Last Friday, the Phillies knocked Hefner around for a career-high 8 runs and 10 hits in two innings on a steamy night at Citi Field, hammering his fastball. On Wednesday, it was his breaking ball that was ineffective. Off-speed pitches were clobbered into the stands for home runs by Dan Uggla and Andrelton Simmons in the fifth.
"The team is playing well, we're playing good defense and scoring runs, and I'm not holding up my end of the deal," Hefner said. "I want to be a big contributor to this team, and to make a playoff push, we have to win a lot of games in a hurry. To have my performance tonight is unacceptable."
Against Hudson, Hefner would have had to be nearly perfect anyway.
In the fourth, Wright nearly managed to knock himself out of the game, when he broke his bat on a ground ball to short and the barrel swung around to knock him in the back of the head, just below his helmet line. Wright fell to the ground in the batter's box, apparently stunned and unable to run.
Wright wound up being fine — "It stunned me for a few seconds, but I'll live," he said afterward — and remained in the game. It did not go unnoticed by the Mets that the first person to rush over to check on him was Hudson.
"That's certainly the kind of guy he is," Collins said. "He's one of the real true competitors you like to go out and compete against."
INSIDE PITCH
Jon Niese threw a bullpen session Wednesday, and Manager Terry Collins said he expected him to begin a rehabilitation assignment in the Gulf Coast League early next week. Niese, a left-hander, has been on the disabled list since June 21 with a partly torn rotator cuff. ...Zack Wheeler said he was hopeful that the blood blister that developed on his right hand in his last start would not affect him Thursday against the Braves, but he acknowledged that it bothered him against the Phillies on Saturday. "It's a big blister right where you release the ball," Wheeler said. "Hopefully it's healed up and callused over."
Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Alejandro Bedoya beating his teammate Kyle Beckerman to the ball for a header in the United States' semifinal against Honduras.
Putting in another solid performance, the United States national team advanced to the final of the Concacaf Gold Cup with a convincing 3-1 win over Honduras on Wednesday night in Arlington, Tex.
Landon Donovan once again proved to be the difference maker; no player in the tournament is playing as well as Donovan, a three-time World Cup veteran. He was involved in all three goals — scoring two of them — and is playing like the standout performer he was at the 2002 and 2010 World Cups. The big question will be how Coach Jurgen Klinsmann fits him into the first team in the remaining World Cup qualifying games later in the year.
Kyle Beckerman and Alejandro Bedoya were also standouts, helping the United States create chances and win the midfield battle. Entering the summer, both players were on the bubble as to whether they had a chance to be involved with the World Cup qualifying team. Questions remain, but each helped his cause Wednesday night. Both could play big roles in Sunday's final against Panama in Chicago, when the Americans will try to win the Gold Cup for the first time since 2007.
The ratings (on a scale of 1, diabolical; to 10, world class):
Starting lineup
Nick Rimando: The Real Salt Lake veteran could not be faulted on the Honduran goal, but otherwise it was good performance. He was rarely asked to make a difficult save but commanded his area well. Rating: 5.5
Michael Parkhurst: Throughout this tournament, Parkhurst is showing himself to be a dependable right back. He did not have any highlight plays on Wednesday, but Honduras did not have success attacking down his side, and that is his most important job. Rating: 6.0
Matt Besler: It is easy to see why Klinsmann rates Besler highly. He is sturdy defensively and, unlike many American center backs in the past, he can pass well. All of these attributes were on display against Honduras, and the midtournament addition of Besler to the team should give the Americans an advantage in the final. Rating: 6.5
Clarence Goodson: After a series of standout performances in the Gold Cup, Goodson did not have a good game against Honduras. He lost Nery Medina on the Honduran goal and nearly cost the U.S. a second goal with a turnover in the 70th minute. His very nice long ball out of the back to set up the final U.S. goal helps his rating, but it would not be a surprise to see Omar Gonzalez get the start over Goodson in the final. Rating: 4.5
DaMarcus Beasley: It has been a good tournament for Beasley, but he struggled to make an impact offensively. Rating: 5.0
Kyle Beckerman: A second straight strong performance. Beckerman forced numerous turnovers and distributed the ball well from deep positions. He is not a flashy player but does the dirty work needed to win games, as he did Wednesday by eliminating Honduras's ability to control the midfield. Rating: 6.5
Stuart Holden: Holden has shown glimpses of the way he was able to play before a series of injuries cost him about two years away from the national team. What is missing, however, is consistency, and Holden did not have a complete performance against Honduras. He helped the U.S. maintain more possession but was also invisible for long stretches. He deserves praise for fighting through injuries, including a vicious elbow to the face in the first half. Rating: 5.0
Alejandro Bedoya: While Landon Donovan's goals will grab all the attention, Bedoya might have had the most important night from an individual perspective. After a terrific season in 2013 with Helsingborg in Sweden, Bedoya needed to show that his club success could translate to the national team. With two assists and an outstanding overall performance, Bedoya made a case that he can help this team in the important games that lie ahead. To make the World Cup team next year, he will probably have to beat out Joe Corona as a player who can play both on the wings and centrally. It will be an interesting competition. Rating: 7.5
Jose Torres: It was a mixed performance from Torres, who helped the U.S. maintain a possession advantage but was not able to create as many dangerous opportunities as he had in recent games. He was not effective in the final third and was not involved in many scoring chances. He appeared rattled by the very physical play of Honduras. Rating: 5.0
Landon Donovan: It is getting a little redundant to heap praise on Donovan in this Gold Cup, but he was remarkable yet again. In his 150th international appearance, Donovan scored twice and assisted on the third goal. His numbers since his return this month are staggering: in six games, he has seven goals and seven assists. For his international career, he has 56 goals and 55 assists. The next challenge for Jurgen Klinsmann will be finding a role for Donovan with the first team. If he successfully integrates Donovan into the core group of players, the U.S. could be very dangerous next year in Brazil. Rating: 8.5 and man of the match
Eddie Johnson: In a game in which the U.S. needed a target striker, Johnson was a perfect fit. He showed good ball control and finishing ability — scoring the opening goal — and he was instrumental in the second goal, when he headed the ball to a rushing Bedoya, who then passed it to Donovan. Johnson is not a complete forward, but he is lethal in certain situations, and Honduras proved to be one of those times. Rating: 7.0
Substitutes
Mix Diskerud: Coming into the game in the 67th minute for Beckerman, Diskerud had an off night in an otherwise good tournament. In contrast with his performance in earlier games, he did not connect well with his teammates, nor did he force as many turnovers as Beckerman. Rating: 4.5
Brek Shea: Like Diskerud, Shea came on in the 67th minute, for Jose Torres, and was not as productive either offensively or defensively. He had little impact, and his confidence is clearly lacking. Rating: 4.0
Chris Wondolowski: Coming on in the 72nd minute, Wondolowski had the unenviable job of replacing the magnificent Donovan. The U.S. was not pressing as much late and didn't have many opportunities, but he should have earned a penalty — if the referee hadn't blown the call. Rating: 5.5
Coaching
Jurgen Klinsmann: One of the major story lines from the game was how Klinsmann was sent off by the referee Enrico Wijngaarde in the 87th minute, but Klinsmann had every right to be upset. Wijngaarde had a very poor game and lost control of the match early. The U.S. was fortunate to escape the game without an injury. A disciplinary committee will determine if Klinsmann will be suspended for the final. As for the game, Klinsmann chose the lineup well, and it was a bold decision to start Bedoya over Corona, who had been playing well. Bedoya repaid Klinsmann's faith with a terrific performance. None of his substitutes helped the U.S., but it was a good performance nonetheless, and he probably earned the respect of his players by sticking up for them with the officials. Rating: 7.0
