Weekend Sports in Briefs
MLB
HOUSTON (AP) — Carlos Correa hit a leadoff home run in the 11th inning and the Houston Astros won a battle of the bullpens, beating the New York Yankees 3-2 Sunday night to tie the AL Championship Series at one game apiece.
The slumping Correa, who earlier hit an RBI double and made a sensational play at shortstop, connected for an opposite-field shot to right off J.A. Happ.
Correa watched the ball sail, then held up one finger as he rounded the bases. As he approached home plate, he tossed his helmet as if shooting a basketball at the crowd of teammates waiting for him.
Game 3 is Tuesday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. Gerrit Cole, who is 18-0 in his last 24 starts and led the majors in strikeouts, starts for the Astros against Luis Severino.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Max Scherzer followed Aníbal Sánchez’s near no-hitter with a try of his own and the stingy Washington Nationals beat the St. Louis Cardinals 3-1 on Saturday for a 2-0 lead in the NL Championship Series.
Scherzer didn’t allow a hit until Paul Goldschmidt led off the seventh inning with a single that left fielder Juan Soto played conservatively with a one-run lead. A day earlier, Sánchez held the Cardinals hitless until pinch-hitter José Martínez singled with two down in the eighth.
Sánchez and Scherzer also began the 2013 ALCS with consecutive no-hit bids of at least five innings for Detroit against Boston.
Scherzer, a St. Louis native who played college ball for the University of Missouri, struck out 11 and walked two in seven innings.
It doesn’t get any easier for St. Louis, either. Stephen Strasburg gets the ball when the best-of-seven series moves to Washington for Game 3 on Monday night. Jack Flaherty pitches for the Cards.
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — The Los Angeles Angels say they don’t know whether a longtime public relations official had been providing drugs to late pitcher Tyler Skaggs, as detailed in a report on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines.”
Eric Kay, a 24-year employee of the Angels’ PR department, told the Drug Enforcement Agency he had provided opioids to Skaggs and used them with the pitcher for years, according to the ESPN report Saturday. Kay reportedly watched as Skaggs snorted three lines of crushed pills in his hotel room in Texas, on the night before he was found dead.
Kay also told the DEA he believes several other Angels players used opioids, ESPN reported.
Skaggs was found dead in his hotel room July 1 before the start of a series against the Rangers. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office said the 27-year-old died after choking on his vomit with a toxic mix of alcohol and the painkillers fentanyl and oxycodone in his body.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — David Freese retired Saturday after an 11-year career in the majors in which he shone brightest in the postseason, winning a World Series title with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2011 when he was MVP.
The 36-year-old infielder made the announcement on Twitter.
He was a career .277 hitter and even better in the postseason, with a .299 average.
Freese made his final appearance Wednesday in a deciding Game 5 of an NL Division Series, striking out as a pinch-hitter for the Los Angeles Dodgers. They lost 7-3 to the Washington Nationals. Freese had started Game 1 at first base.
GYMNASTICS
STUTTGART, Germany (AP) — Simone Biles broke the all-time record for most medals by any gymnast at the world championships by winning the balance beam and floor exercise Sunday.
Biles won her 24th medal on the beam, breaking a tie on 23 with the Belarusian men’s gymnast Vitaly Scherbo, and added her 25th less than two hours later.
Biles scored 15.066 on the beam after a near-flawless routine, opting for a simpler dismount than the double-double she performed earlier in the championships.
When her score was announced, guaranteeing the medal record, Biles leaped up from her seat with a broad smile and punched the air.
RUNNING
VIENNA (AP) — Eliud Kipchoge has become the first athlete to run a marathon in less than two hours, although it will not count as a world record.
The Olympic champion and world record holder from Kenya clocked 1 hour, 59 minutes and 40 seconds Saturday at the INEOS 1:59 Challenge, an event set up for the attempt.
Kipchoge was supported by 36 pacemakers who accompanied him in alternating groups, one of the reasons the IAAF will not ratify the time as a world record.
Running at a consistent average pace of 2:50 minutes per kilometer (4:33.5 minutes per mile), Kipchoge was 11 seconds ahead of schedule halfway through his run.
The pacemakers left him for the final 500 meters, and Kipchoge punched his chest twice in celebration when he finished.
The Prater park in the Austrian capital offered long straights, protected from the wind by high trees, for most of the 9.6-kilometer course, which Kipchoge completed more than 4 times.
It was his second attempt at breaking the two-hour barrier, after missing out by 26 seconds at a similar event on the Formula One track in Monza, Italy, in May 2017.
Kipchoge, who took Olympic gold in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and has won 10 of his 11 marathons, holds the official world record of 2:01:39 since shattering the previous best mark by 78 seconds in Berlin last year.
COLLEGE BASKETBALL
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Hall of Fame basketball coach Jim Calhoun is denying allegations of sexual discrimination made by a former associate athletic director at the University of Saint Joseph, the Division III school where he now works.
Calhoun says in a statement released Saturday by the school that he never “knowingly treated any woman unfairly because of her gender” and he fully supports women’s rights and equality.
Jaclyn Piscitelli sued the Catholic school in West Hartford in federal court Wednesday. She alleges she was fired after complaining about the conduct of men in the athletic department, including the 77-year-old Calhoun, who coaches the school’s men’s basketball team.
GOLF
HUMBLE, Texas (AP) — Lanto Griffin took the lead with a 35-foot birdie putt and won the Houston Open on Sunday with a 6-foot par that gave him a 3-under 69 and a one-shot victory that sends him to the Masters next year.
Griffin was locked into a battle on the back nine at the Golf Club of Houston with Mark Hubbard and Scott Harrington. None of the three had won on the PGA Tour. Hubbard lost the lead with a bogey on the par-5 16th, while Harrington’s big rally ended with a three-putt bogey on the 17th.
Griffin’s birdie on the 16th was his first since the eighth hole. On the 18th hole, he ran his 60-foot birdie attempt about 6 feet by the hole and made that to avoid a playoff.
CARY, N.C. (AP) — Jerry Kelly closed with a 7-under 65 and won the SAS Championship on Sunday, allowing him to close the gap in the Charles Schwab Cup as the PGA Tour Champions heads into its postseason.
Kelly ran off five straight birdies on the front nine at Prestonwood Country Club to take control. Two birdies late in the final round gave him some breathing room, and he closed with a bogey for a one-shot victory over David McKenzie, who shot 63.
Woody Austin and Doug Barron, who shared the lead going into the final round, each shot 71 and tied for third with David Toms (66).
Kelly moved to within $221,430 of Scott McCarron in the Schwab Cup. Points are double in the three playoff events.
ROME (AP) — Bernd Wiesberger moved atop the Race to Dubai rankings by winning the Italian Open on Sunday for his second Rolex Series victory of the year.
Wiesberger carded a bogey-free 6-under 65 at Olgiata Golf Club for a one-stroke victory over Matthew Fitzpatrick after beginning the day three strokes behind the Englishman.
Fitzpatrick had chances to get into a playoff but missed both an eagle putt on the 17th hole that lipped around the cup and a birdie effort on No. 18.
It was Wiesberger’s third win of the season after Denmark in May and the Scottish Open — which is also in the Rolex Series — in July. The 34-year-old Austrian also finished in a tie for second in the Irish Open.
AUTO RACING
TALLADEGA, Ala. (AP) — NASCAR’s playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway has been postponed a day because of rain.
William Byron won the first stage, moments before scattered showers halted action. The race will resume Monday.
The Alabama superspeedway has a tight window with no lights to permit racing after dark.
Chase Elliott started on the pole with three Hendrick Motorsports teammates right behind him.
SUZUKA, Japan (AP) — Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas surged into the lead at the start and held on to win the typhoon-hit Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday for his third Formula One victory of the season and first since April.
Bottas, who started third on the grid, pulled ahead of Ferrari drivers Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc almost immediately and then used an effective two-stop pit strategy to finish 11.376 seconds ahead of Vettel. Bottas’ teammate and championship leader Lewis Hamilton was third.
With Bottas holding a comfortable lead over the closing laps at the Suzuka Circuit, there was a fierce battle for second place between Vettel and Hamilton.
Hamilton made a desperate attempt to pass Vettel over the final two laps but was unable to pull ahead. But the podium finishes for Bottas and Hamilton ensured Mercedes won their sixth-consecutive constructors’ championship.
BOXING
CHICAGO (AP) — The manager of Patrick Day says the boxer has suffered a traumatic brain injury and is in extremely critical condition in a coma caused by the injury during a bout.
Lou DiBella says in a posting on his website Sunday night that Day underwent emergency surgery after being rushed to Northwestern Memorial Hospital after getting viciously knocked out in the 10th round by Charles Conwell on Saturday.
Fighting at super welterweight on the undercard of Oleksandr Usyk’s heavyweight debut against Chazz Witherspoon, Conwell landed a right hand early in the 10th. That caused Day to stumble and seconds later Conwell landed a left hook that knocked Day to the canvas.
The 27-year-old Day, from Freeport, New York, was instantly knocked out and it wasn’t clear if he regained consciousness. He was treated by a doctor in the ring and then was rushed off on a stretcher by paramedics and transported to the hospital. Day was knocked down twice earlier in the fight.
