Sports Briefs March 5, 2012
Baseball
Jason Vargas threw four perfect innings against to lead the Seattle Mariners to a 5-4 win over the San Diego Padres on Sunday in Peoria, Ariz.
"I was around the zone. I was throwing the ball pretty much in the areas I was trying to throw it in so, it's getting work but at the same time, it's getting outs," Vargas said.
He'd hoped to get to 60 pitches, but didn't need to do so.
The Padres, playing their spring training opener, committed three errors and had reliever Luke Gregerson allow two runs and four hits in an inning.
Jesus Montero doubled in a run off Gregerson in the fifth and Kyle Seager, the lead candidate to play third base if the Mariners open the season with leadoff man Chone Figgins in center field, singled and scored in the inning.
The Mariners and Padres face each other again today with San Diego as the home team.
• Cuban defector Yoenis Cespedes worked out with the Oakland Athletics for the first time. The slugging outfielder performed some agility drills to measure his vertical leap and took batting practice with Manny Ramirez and Cedric Hunter during a highly anticipated session in which he sprayed pitches to all fields and sent a couple of souvenirs over the walls.
Golf
Rory McIlroy won the Honda Classic with a performance worthy of the new No. 1 player in golf.
Right when it looked as though McIlroy had no serious challenge in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla,., Tiger Woods put some color into that red shirt with a birdie-eagle finish for a 62 - his lowest final round ever - to get within one shot of the lead.
McIlroy could hear the roar from the farthest corner of PGA National, and the 22-year-old from Northern Ireland responded with some clutch golf of his own. He made an 8-foot birdie putt, and then made three clutch par saves during a daunting stretch at PGA National.
He played it safe with a two-shot lead on the par-5 18th and made par to close with a 1-under 69 and the victory he needed to replace Luke Donald atop the world ranking.
NHL
Flyers 1, Capitals 0: Eric Wellwood scored less than a minute after Philadelphia coach Peter Laviolette called a timeout to give his players an earful, and Ilya Bryzgalov made 34 saves, leading Philadelphia at Washington.
Blackhawks 2, Red Wings 1: Patrick Sharp had a goal and an assist to lead Chicago at Detroit.
Rangers 4, Bruins 3: Derek Stepan and Marian Gaborik scored in the third, and host New York held on to beat Boston.
Islanders 1, Devils 0: At Uniondale, N.Y., Anders Nilsson made 24 saves to lead New York past New Jersey.
Stars 3, Flames 2, SO: Loui Eriksson had a goal and assist in regulation, then scored in a shootout in Dallas' victory at Calgary.
Panthers 4, Senators 2: At Sunrise, Fla., Marcel Goc, Krystofer Barch and Mikael Samuelsson scored second-period goals and Florida beat Ottawa.
Avalanche 2, Wild 0: At St. Paul, Minn., Jamie McGinn got his first career two-goal game to lift Colorado over Minnesota.
Skiing
Kjetil Jansrud won the men's World Cup super-G race on the Olympic course in Kvitfjell, Norway.
The Norwegian skier finished in 1 minute, 34.02 seconds. His compatriot Aksel Lund Svindal was second, 0.21 behind, with Beat Feuz of Switzerland in third, 0.26 behind the winner.
• After a couple of nasty crashes and three mostly lost seasons of injuries and rehabilitation, Resi Stiegler reached a more ambitious milestone, finishing a career-best second in a World Cup slalom Oftenschwang, Germany.
The only person between the American and a gold medal was Erin Mielzynski, who gave Canada its first World Cup slalom victory in more than 40 years.
Sled dog racing
Sixty-six mushers began their quest to win the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Willow, Alaska.
There are six former champions in the race, including last year's winner, 49-year-old John Baker of Kotzebue.
- The Associated Press