IN BRIEF (Page 11)

Baseball

Tigers, Twins in playoff

DETROIT: The Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins sealed victories on Sunday to end the regular season deadlocked for first place in the American League Central.

They will meet in a one-game tiebreaker on Tuesday in Minneapolis to decide the division's playoff representative.

The results left the Tigers and the Twins with identical 86-76 records, forcing an extra game to decide the only berth remaining in Major League Baseball's post-season.

The Tigers' Justin Verlander pitched seven-plus innings and gave up six hits and struck out five.

Soccer

Young gun

MADRID: Athletic Bilbao's 16-year-old forward, Iker Muniain, became the youngest scorer in La Liga when he earned them a point in Sunday's 2-2 draw at Real Valladolid.

Muniain, who turns 17 in December and was a second-half substitute, picked up a loose ball on the edge of the area in the 77th minute and his snap shot was good enough to beat Jacobo Sanz in the Valladolid goal for the second equalizer.

Athletic confirmed on their website (www.athletic-club.net) Muniain was the youngest scorer in Spain's top flight.

'Galacticos' fall

MADRID: Real Madrid's "Galacticos" crashed to their first defeat of the season, losing 2-1 at title rivals Sevilla on Sunday as Barcelona opened a three-point lead at the summit.

Real were aiming to make it a perfect six wins and join Barcelona on maximum points but instead Sevilla underlined their own credentials with a fifth straight win to move level on points with Real.

(China Daily 10/06/2009 page11)