TORONTO-- Robinson Chirinos hit a two-run homer while Rougned Odor added a solo shot as the Texas Rangers defeated the Toronto Blue Jays 5-3 on Thursday in the opener of their American League Division Series.
  Rangers right-hander Yovani Gallardo allowed four hits, one walk and two runs and struck out one in five innings to post his fourth win in four career starts against the Blue Jays.
  "The ball was up in the zone a little bit but we stayed with the game plan and got some ground balls whenever I needed to and limited the damage," Gallardo said.
  Blue Jays left-hander David Price allowed five hits that included two home runs and five runs in seven innings to run his post-season record to 1-6.
  "I just didn't pitch the way I'm capable of," Price said.
  "It was just nerves those first couple of pitches."
  Both teams lost players to injury with Texas third baseman Adrian Beltre suffering a stiff lower back when he slid into second, while Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson took a knee in the head when he slid hard into second base in the fourth.
  "He came out, precautionary, I think he got a little light-headed," Blue Jay manager John Gibbons said of Donaldson's injury. "They checked for a concussion and he apparently passed all the tests so that's good news."
  Blue Jays right fielder Jose Bautista, who hit a solo homer, came out of the game after the eighth with a hamstring cramp but was expected to be okay for the second game on Friday.
  The Rangers took a 2-0 lead in the third when Price hit Odor with a pitch to open the inning.
  Odor was brought home when center fielder Delino DeShields singled before DeShields scored on a single to center by Beltre, who left in the middle of the third.
  "We'll know more tonight and also in the morning where he's at," Rangers manager Jeff Banister said.
  "Obviously we want Adrian in the game. He's the heart and soul of this club."
  The Blue Jays scored a run in the fourth on an infield hit by designated hitter Edwin Encarnacion that brought home left fielder Ben Revere, the first Blue Jays run against Gallardo in his three starts against them this season.
  Chirinos put the Rangers ahead 4-1 with a home run to left in the fifth after Odor was hit by a pitch for the second time.
  The Blue Jays scored twice in the fifth on doubles by catcher Russell Martin and center fielder Kevin Pillar before Bautista belted a home run in the bottom of the sixth to cut the Rangers' lead to 4-3.
  Odor restored the two-run lead when he lined a one-out homer to right in the seventh that ended the scoring.
  "I liked the effort and I liked our intensity," Martin said.
  "They played a little better than we did. Everybody's different. I'm over it and ready to come out tomorrow."

BEIJING-- Second seed Tomas Berdych crashed out in the first round of the China Open on Wednesday after losing 6-4 6-4 to Uruguay's Pablo Cuevas, two days after winning his first ATP title of the year in Shenzen.
  The Czech, the 2011 champion and the finalist in Beijing last year, hit 16 winners while committing double the number of unforced errors to lose his opening match and now heads to Shanghai for his third event in the Asian country.
  "I made one tournament title, the other one didn't go my way," Berdych said on the ATP website (www.atpworldtour.com).
  "(I'm) just going to try to do well in the third one, my last one.
  "It's always a difficult part of the year. We have to travel a lot. The conditions are always very different, very difficult, week by week here in China. It's not easy to adjust."
  Spaniard David Ferrer, fresh from winning his fourth title of the year in Malaysia on Sunday, advanced to the quarter-finals in Beijing with a 7-6(5) 6-2 win against Czech Lukas Rosol.
  Ferrer's countryman Rafa Nadal also made his way through to the last eight with a 7-6(3) 6-4 win over Vasek Pospisil in the final match of the evening.
  After both players failed to break each other's serve in the opening set, Nadal, who beat his former practice partner Wu Di of China in the first round, got the all important break in the fifth game of the second and then served the match out.
  Taiwan's wild card entrant Lu Yen-hsun and American Jack Sock also advanced to the quarter-finals.
  In the women's draw, Pole Agnieszka Radwanska reached the last eight when her opponent Madison Keys retired with a thigh injury after losing the first set 6-3.
  "Of course, this is not the way that I wanted to end up that match," she said on the WTA website (www.wtatennis.com). "But as we all know the year is ending soon and we can see a couple of retirements.
  "Hopefully she will get better soon."
  Next up for Radwanska in the quarter-finals will be German Angelique Kerber who brushed aside Caroline Wozniacki 6-2 6-3, ending the Dane's chances of qualifying for the WTA Finals in Singapore.
  Rising star Garbine Muguruza, who reached this year's Wimbledon final, won her second round match 6-2 6-1 against American qualifier Irina Falconi and is now one victory away from qualifying for Singapore.

PITTSBURGH - The Chicago Cubs celebrated their first postseason win in 12 years when they beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-0 in the Major League Baseball playoffs on Wednesday.
  Chicago pitcher Jake Arrieta struck out 11 in a complete game shutout while Kyle Schwarber and Dexter Fowler both blasted home runs as the Cubs clinched the one-off National League Wild Card game.
  For the Cubs, who have not won the World Series since 1908 - the longest drought in North American professional sports - their next opponents will be the St. Louis Cardinals, who they meet in a best-of-five division series, starting Friday.
  The last time the Cubs won a playoff game was in 2003, while the last time they made the World Series was 1945.
  Arrieta, who led the majors with 22 regular season wins, continued his brilliant form, giving up only four hits at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.
  He outdueled his counterpart Gerrit Cole, who lasted only five innings, as the Pirates bowed out in the Wild Card game for the second successive year.
  Arrieta was in trouble only once, in the sixth inning, when Pittsburgh loaded the bases with one out before left fielder Starling Marte grounded out into a double play.
  Arrieta's most harrowing moment came at the plate, in the seventh inning, when he was struck in the left hip by Pittsburgh reliever Tony Watson.
  Arrieta had previously struck two Pirates and the incident led to a dugout-clearing melee and the ejection of Pittsburgh first baseman Sean Rodriguez, who appeared to throw a punch.
  Arrieta said afterwards that he expected to be hit in retaliation.
  "I hit two guys unintentionally," Arrieta said afterwards in an on-field interview. "I'm never trying to hurt or hit anybody  I expected that. They're going to take care of their own guys. It's understandable."
  Arrieta was backed by a sporadic but dangerous offense, led by Schwarber, whose two-run home run to right field in the third inning sailed out of the park and traveled an estimated 450-feet.
  Fowler hit a solo run in the fifth inning.

NEW YORK-- The Houston Astros blasted into the next round of the Major League Baseball postseason with a 3-0 shutout of the New York Yankees in their Wild Card playoff game on Tuesday.
Solo home runs by Colby Rasmus and Carlos Gomez backed the superlative pitching of Houston starting pitcher Dallas Keuchel, who blanked the Yanks on three hits over six innings with seven strikeouts.
  Keuchel, 20-8 this season and pitching on three days' rest for the first time, silenced the New York crowd of 50,000 by running his scoreless streak against the pinstripes to 22 innings in 2015.
  "I didn't think we would play that well," Keuchel said in a televised post-game interview.
  "I thought we'd play a bit better than average but I didn't think we'd come to Yankee Stadium and play that well."
  Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka took the loss, giving up first-pitch home runs by Rasmus in the second inning and by Gomez in the fourth, in his five innings of work.
  The victory lifted the Astros, appearing in the playoffs for the first time since 2005, into a best-of-five American League Division Series against the Kansas City Royals, starting Thursday.
  On Wednesday, the National League Wild Card game will be contested in Pittsburgh, with the Pirates taking on the Chicago Cubs in a showdown between NL Central clubs.
  The other AL Division Series will see the Toronto Blue Jays, back in the postseason for the first time in 22 years, at home to the Texas Rangers.