Cardinals, Carpenter agree to $52M, six-year deal
JUPITER, Fla. — The St. Louis Cardinals and third baseman Matt Carpenter have agreed to a $52 million, six-year contract.
The deal includes a team option for a seventh year in 2020 at $18.5 million. Should St. Louis decline the option, they would pay Carpenter a $2 million buyout.
Carpenter’s agent, Bryan Cahill, said the 28-year-old received a $1 million signing bonus and he’ll make $1.5 million this season. The salary escalates each year, reaching $14.5 million in 2019.
Carpenter said the decision to sign a long-term deal with St. Louis was a “no-brainer.”
He hit .318 while leading the National League in hits (199), doubles (55) and runs (126) last season while playing second base. He is moving to third this season.
Mayweather isn’t overlooking Maidana
LAS VEGAS — Floyd Mayweather says he picked Marcos Maidana over Amir Khan for his next fight because Maidana has fought better lately.
Mayweather said Saturday at a news conference in Las Vegas: “Look at his last four fights and look at Khan’s last four fights.”
Maidana is coming off a big win over Adrian Broner, knocking him down twice in their Dec. 14 bout and handing him his first loss. The Argentine is known as a brawler, while Mayweather has made a career based on his excellent defense.
Mayweather turned 37 last month but says he is not slowing down. He plans to fight three more times after facing Maidana on May 3 but is leaving open the possibility there could be more bouts.
Mayweather is undefeated in 45 fights, while Maidana is 35-3 with 31 knockouts.
Olympic champion Shiffrin wins slalom
ARE, Sweden — American Mikaela Shiffrin retained her World Cup slalom title on Saturday, adding to her Sochi Olympics gold medal in the discipline just five days before her 19th birthday.
Shiffrin led from start to finish, as she did at the Sochi Games two weeks ago. Shiffrin now has Olympic and world championship gold medals and two World Cup titles in her specialty event.
“My first win was just amazing, it was the start of all of this,” she said the 2013 slalom title. “It was finally in my mind, I felt like I could be a good ski racer at the World Cup level.”
Shiffrin defended her title in a combined two-run time of 1 minute, 50.66 seconds. She finished 0.60 ahead of Swedes Maria Pietilae-Holmner and Anna Swenn-Larsson, who earned her first career podium finish in third.
Heptathlete Eaton misses world record
SOPOT, Poland — Ashton Eaton has successfully defended his heptathlon world indoor championship title but a world record escaped the American by just 1.18 seconds over the closing 1,000 meters.
Instead of celebrating his continued dominance in multievent competitions, the Olympic and world outdoor decathlon champion slammed his fists on the railing in disgust for having missed out on the world record on Saturday.
Dominating the two-day, seven-event competition from the opening 60 meters, Eaton finished the closing 1,000 in 2 minutes, 34.72 seconds for a total of 6,632 points. The record stands at 6,645.
The defending champion held a massive margin of 329 points over Andrei Krauchanka of Belarus.
Thomas Van der Plaatsen of Belgium took bronze.
Seattle tops Kansas City in MLS opener
SEATTLE — Chad Barrett scored off a wild scramble in the penalty area in the final moments of second half-stoppage time to give the Seattle Sounders a 1-0 victory over Sporting Kansas City on Saturday in the Major League Soccer opener.
Seattle shocked Kansas City with a goal in stoppage time for the fifth time in the past eight matches. Barrett scored in his Sounders debut after Clint Dempsey’s header clanged off the crossbar and goalkeeper Eric Kronberg was caught out of his net.
Kronberg had been solid in his debut for Kansas City, replacing long-time starter Jimmy Nielsen, but was caught out of position in the goal.
Dempsey came on in the 57th minute just a few days after playing 90 minutes for the U.S. national team in an exhibition loss to Ukraine in Cyprus.
Leader Chelsea trounces Tottenham
LONDON — Chelsea kept up its remorseless march to the English Premier League title with a 4-0 thrashing of Tottenham on Saturday, while a rejuvenated Mesut Ozil helped Arsenal secure a place in the FA Cup semifinals for the first time since 2009.
Chelsea is provisionally seven points ahead of second place Liverpool and third place Arsenal after capitalizing on a woeful second half from Spurs to score all its goals in the final 34 minutes.
Elsewhere in a truncated league program, Manchester United eased past West Bromwich 3-0 to keep alive its faint top-four hopes.
Arsenal beat Everton 4-1 at Emirates Stadium to become the first team through to the last four of the FA Cup, with substitute Olivier Giroud scoring two of the hosts’ three goals in the final 22 minutes.
By wire sources