Jake Peavy is putting together an impressive Cy Young resume. Peavy lowered his major league-leading ERA to 2.39, struck out 10 to take over the big league lead and pitched the San Diego Padres to a 5-1 win over the last-place San Francisco Giants on Sunday. Kevin Kouzmanoff had three hits and an RBI for the Padres, who maintained their 1 1/2 -game lead in the NL wild-card race.
After sweeping the Minnesota Twins, Detroit wasted little time in looking forward to a crucial three-game series at division-leading Cleveland beginning Monday. But the Tigers did spend a few minutes celebrating Todd Jones’ 300th career save. “Great win for us, good for (Jones), off to Cleveland,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland said.
Not only did Billy Buckner earn his first major league win Sunday, Kansas City’s rookie right-hander helped make the AL Central race a little tighter. Buckner pitched the Royals to a 4-3 victory over the first-place Cleveland Indians, who had their division lead sliced to 4 1/2 games when Detroit beat Minnesota.
It was the kind of play Dante Hall has made many times, camped under a punt, waiting to make the catch. This time, late in the fourth quarter Sunday, he dropped it. Marcus Hudson recovered for San Francisco, setting up the winning field goal in the 49ers’ 17-16 win over St. Louis. “It was a routine play for me,” Hall said.
The Minnesota Vikings were without their starting backfield against the Detroit Lions, listing Chester Taylor (hip) and Tony Richardson (forearm) as inactive Sunday. Taylor was listed as a starter, but Minnesota obviously planned to rely heavily on rookie running back Adrian Peterson after he ran for 103 yards and scored on a 60-yard reception in his NFL debut.
The NFL is continuing to monitor spying devices following the penalties levied by commissioner Roger Goodell this week against the New England Patriots. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Sunday that new memos on both videotaping and electronic surveillance of signals have gone out to all 32 teams reminding them of bans on the various types of surveillance.
