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Thursday Wimbledon — Women’s semis, 4 a.m., ESPN2, 9 a.m., NBC MLB— Mariners at Yankees, 10 a.m., MLBN MLB — Athletics at Orioles, 4 p.m., CSNC MLB— Rays at Twins, 5 p.m., MLBN MLB— Giants at Rockies, 5:30 p.m., CSNB PGA— AT&T National, 11 a.m., TGC Sports 1B Thursday July 1, 2010 Dodgers sweep Giants Federer’s finals streak stopped WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — Roger Federer covered his face with both hands, no doubt wishing he were doing anything at that moment other than dissecting his latest earlier- than-expected Grand Slam exit. This one came at Wimble- don, no less — the tournament that he loves more than any other, that he ruled for so long. After all the victories, all the championships, all the records, Federer now must deal with a new streak: The owner of 16 major titles, the man widely considered the best player in tennis history, has lost two consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinals in the span of a month, both against opponents who have yet to win a single such trophy. Federer arrived at the All England Club aiming to reach the final for the eighth year in a row and win a record-tying seventh title. Instead, he leaves before the semifinals, beaten 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 Wednesday by No. 12 Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic. On June 1, Federer lost in the French Open quarterfinals as the defending champion there, too, putting an end to his unprecedented 23 consecutive appearances in major semifi- nals. ‘‘God, I can’t wait for Paris and Wimbledon to come around next year again, that’s for sure, because they’ve been frustrating tournaments for me, even though it wasn’t too bad. Quarters is a decent result,’’ Federer said, as if trying to convince himself along with everyone else. ‘‘Obviously, people think quarters is shocking, but people MCT photo SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A couple of days off put Matt Kemp in a good frame of mind. Kemp homered and drove in three The Dodgers’Vicente Padilla pitches during the third inning,Wednesday, in San Francisco. striking out five. runs, Vicente Padilla won his 100th game, and the Los Angeles Dodgers completed a three-game sweep of the San Francisco Giants with an 8-2 win Wednesday. Kemp was out of the starting lineup the first two games of the series, though he replaced the injured Manny Ramirez Tuesday night, and brought a lowly .208 batting average in June into the finale. ‘‘A couple of days off did me some good,’’ Kemp said. ‘‘It let my body get a rest and probably rested my mind a little bit too. I think anybody who plays every day appreciates a day off now and then.’’ Rafael Furcal had four hits, includ- ing a home run, and drove in two for the Dodgers, who earned a sweep in San Francisco for the first time in three years. ‘‘He makes us that much more exciting,’’ Dodgers’ manager Joe Torre said of Furcal. ‘‘He can do a lot of things and not only with a bat in his hands. He elevates us with the way he plays the game.’’ Padilla (2-2) won for the first time in three starts since coming off the dis- abled list on June 19. Ronnie Belliard also drove in a run for the Dodgers. Aaron Rowand had three hits, including a home run, for the Giants, who lost their fifth straight. Jonathan Sanchez (6-6) allowed five runs on six hits over five innings. ‘‘It was embarrassing,’’ Giants’ outfielder Aubrey Huff said. ‘‘As an offense we never got anything going this whole series.’’ Even without an injured Ramirez, who has a strained right hamstring, the Dodgers had more than enough punch. The top three batters combined to go 8 of 13 with four runs scored. Third baseman Jamey Carroll had two doubles, walked twice and scored three runs as the Dodgers improved to 21-5 within their division. ‘‘Playing well against our own divi- sion makes up for some of the sins we’ve committed elsewhere,’’ Torre said. Padilla used a masterful changeup to keep the Giants off balance and off the bases. Aside from Rowand’s sixth- inning shot over the center field wall, only four others reached base and none went past first against him. Padilla, who reached the century mark in his 11th big league season, earned his first win since beating the Giants on April 16. He allowed the one run on three hits, walking one and Furcal, who had four hits, hit a two- run shot in the fifth. Two batters later, Kemp hit a solo shot well up into the left field stands. ‘‘He was fighting himself and going through a rough time,’’ Torre said of Kemp. ‘‘He realized you really can slow the game down. He looked very calm today.’’ Kemp and Belliard each drove in a run in the seventh and Carroll scored on a passed ball. The Dodgers scored twice in the third, on Kemp’s RBI single and a fielding error by Pat Burrell in left field. Sanchez, who walked two and struck out four, is 0-5 in nine starts and 11 appearances against the Dodgers. The Giants scored a total of 14 runs over their six-game homestand and scored two or fewer runs in each of their past five games. ‘‘There’s no sugar-coating it, we didn’t play well this whole homes- tand,’’ Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy said. ‘‘We got our tails kicked. This was a rough series. Our challenge is to get out of this as soon as possible. We’re still in a pretty good position.’’ The Dodgers have won 26 of their last 39 games in San Francisco. Juan Uribe drove in a run with a sacrifice fly in the ninth. Athletics give up five homers, lose 9-6 BALTIMORE (AP) — Another comeback victo- ry by the Balti- more Orioles was tempered by a sobering sight: Luke Scott hob- bling across the clubhouse on crutches. Scott hurt his left ham- string while, of all things, running out a home run. The seventh-inning drive put the Orioles ahead for good in a 9-6 win over the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday night. The injury occurred while Scott was rounding first base, still uncertain if the ball he hit off Cedrick Bowers (0-1) would reach the seats. ‘‘I think I kind of pulled my hamstring. When I hit the ball I knew I hit it good, but I hit it kind of high,’’ Scott said. ‘‘I couldn’t tell if it was going to go over.’’ He suspected the injury would probably land him on the 15-day disabled list. ‘‘I am glad the ball went out,’’ Scott said. ‘‘But this is frustrating.’’ The home run was one of five by Baltimore, tying a season high. It occurred immediately after Ty Wig- ginton hit the first homer by an Ori- oles first baseman this season, a two-run shot off Brad Ziegler that tied the game at 6. Balti- more went 76 games without a homer from a first baseman, the fourth-longest streak to start a season in major leagues since 1961. ‘‘The curse is gone. That was his first reac- tion,’’ Orioles manager Juan Samuel said of Wig- ginton. It was Wigginton’s 14th of the season, the first since May 22. ‘‘I couldn’t honestly remember the last time he even hit one,’’ teammate Adam Jones said. Jones, Corey Patterson and Miguel Tejada also homered for the Orioles, who have won five of six. In all five wins, Baltimore trailed by at least three runs. ‘‘It’s nice that we fought back and found a way to get back in the ball game,’’ Wigginton said. ‘‘I think you’re starting to see a lot of character on this team.’’ Baltimore trailed 6-3 before Patterson hit a solo shot in the fourth. After Wigginton and Scott went deep in the seventh, Teja- da added a two-run shot off Tyson Ross in the eighth. Matt Albers (3-3) pitched one inning of scoreless relief and Alfre- do Simon worked the ninth for his 10th save. Coco Crisp homered and Mark Ellis had three hits for the A’s, whose four-game winning streak ended. Oakland went 10- 17 in June; the last time A’s lost more than 16 games in June was in 1986 (7-22). ‘‘It’s real frustrating for us,’’ Ellis said. ‘‘We put runs on the board. Coco got a big home run for us. Then they got them back. When we score runs, we usually win games.’’ Oakland trailed 3-0 before batting around in a six-run fourth against Kevin Millwood, making his 400th career appear- ance. The highlights included Mark Ellis scor- ing on the front end of an attempted double steal, an RBI single by Gabe Gross and Crisp’s three-run homer to left. Ellis was at third and Gross at first when Cliff Pennington took a half- swing at a 3-2 pitch with the runners going. Catcher Matt Wieters threw to sec- ond, but the pitch was ruled ball four and Ellis came home on what the official scorer ruled a fielder’s choice. Millwood needed 42 pitches to get through an inning in which Tejada and Patterson made errors and Oakland got only four hits. Baltimore went up 2-0 in the second when Scott led off with a walk and Jones hit an opposite-field drive over the 25-foot scoreboard in right. Although the box score won’t show it, Crisp made an outstanding leaping catch at the wall in center on a drive by Patterson in the second inning. Crisp hit his head on the padding, fell to the warn- ing track and stayed there for several minutes. The play did not count because Patterson was awarded first base on catcher’s interference. If the ball dropped in, how- ever, it would have count- ed. ‘‘Coco Crisp is amaz- ing. I had heard he was amazing, but to watch him is unbelievable,’’ Oakland starter Ben Sheets said. In the third, Jones dou- bled in Scott, who walked and took second on a passed ball. would die to play in quarterfinal stages of Grand Slam play,’’ he added, fidgeting during his news conference. ‘‘It’s not something I’m used to doing — losing in quarterfinals — because it’s not something I’ve done in the last six years.’’ Indeed, he participated in 18 of 19 major finals from 2005-10. His dominance at Wimbledon is even more pro- nounced: Until Wednesday, Federer was 51-1 at the tourna- ment since the start of the 2003 edition. Federer placed at least some of the blame for this loss on two previously undisclosed health issues: a bothersome back and right thigh. ‘‘I couldn’t play the way I wanted to play,’’ said Federer, whose defeat guarantees he will drop to No. 3 in the rank- ings for the first time since November 2003, according to the ATP. ‘‘You just don’t feel as comfortable. You can’t concen- trate on each and every point, because you do feel the pain sometimes.’’ He said his leg and back have bothered him since the grass-court tournament in Halle, Germany, where Federer lost to Lleyton Hewitt in the final a week before Wimbledon started. Before that match, Federer had won 76 of his last 77 matches on grass. Now he’s lost two of six. Against Berdych, Federer whiffed on a forehand in the fourth game, but otherwise gave no obvious indication he was troubled. Berdych didn’t notice anything wrong. ‘‘I mean, I don’t know if he just (is) looking for some excuses after the match or something like that,’’ said Berdych, who also beat Federer at Key Biscayne, Fla., in March, after losing to him eight times in a row. Since winning his only 2010 title at the Australian Open in January, Federer has been to the semifinals at only three of eight tournaments. So cue all the questions about the 28- year-old’s future. Not surprisingly, he quickly dismissed a query about whether he believes he can return to dominance, saying: ‘‘Yeah, I do think that. That’s why I’m here.’’ Similar chatter arose when Federer went through — gasp! — three Grand Slam tournaments in 2008 without tak- ing a title, losing to Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open semifinals and Rafael Nadal in the French Open and Wim- bledon finals. But Federer won the U.S. Open that year, then won his first French Open title in 2009 to complete a career Grand Slam and tie Pete Sampras’ mark of 14 major titles. A month later, Federer regained his Wimbledon champi- onship to surpass Sampras. ‘‘When you get older and you’ve accomplished what Roger has, at some point — the guy’s a human being — he’s going to have to sort of face the fact that he’s not going to win these things and that he may never win another thing. So everyone’s sort of waiting, and predicting, when that’s going to happen,’’ said seven-time major title winner John McEn- roe, a TV analyst for NBC. ‘‘(But) let’s not forget, that was a couple of years ago, when he lost to Nadal in the final here: It was over. He was done. He’s a bum.’’ Berdych never had been past the quarterfinals at a Grand Slam until Paris. If he’s going to reach his first major final, he’ll need to eliminate No. 3 Djokovic on Friday. Djokovic advanced to his second Wimbledon semifinal with a 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 victory over 82nd-ranked Yen-hsun Lu of Taiwan, who upset Andy Roddick in the fourth round. One would assume Djokovic was counting on facing See STREAK, page 2B Warriors make qualifying offers to Morrow, Watson OAKLAND (AP) — The Golden State Warriors have extended qualifying offers to Anthony Morrow and C.J. Wat- son, making both guards restrict- ed free agents. The Warriors made the moves Wednesday, giving them- selves the right to match any offer sheet signed by either play- er. Morrow’s offer is worth $1.029 million for next season, while Watson’s offer is for $1.25 million. Morrow averaged 13 points and 3.8 rebounds in 69 games with Golden State last season, making 37 starts. He was fifth in the NBA in 3- point percentage, making 45.6 percent. Watson averaged 10.3 points and 2.8 assists in 65 games, including 15 starts. The Warriors didn’t make qualifying offers to forward Anthony Tolliver and center Chris Hunter. Both are unre- stricted free agents.