Darvish to start Texas' wild-card showdown

OAKLAND, California — Yu Darvish will start the Texas Rangers' first playoff game — and he finally knows all the details about who and when.

Manager Ron Washington announced Darvish as his pick before the Rangers lost their regular-season finale at Oakland 12-5 on Wednesday to wind up as an AL wild card.

"Of course I'm ready," Darvish said through an interpreter. "If I'm not ready I probably wouldn't be picked. I'm going to approach it like any other start. I'll try to pitch well and give my team a chance to win."

The two-time reigning AL champion Rangers will play in the new one-game, wild-card playoff on Friday at home against the Baltimore Orioles.

"He's finally Yu Darvish," Washington said of the club's prized offseason pickup. "I don't know the date, but it was Boston. He found Yu Darvish then, and he's been Yu Darvish since. He was searching to find what he was capable of doing over here. And I think he realizes now that competing in a relaxed, trusting and believing, that there was something he was searching for all year and he finally found it. Which is what he is when he's at his best, which is what all pitchers are when they're at their best."

The 26-year-old Darvish is 16-9 with a 3.90 ERA in 29 starts and 191? innings in his first major league season after a stellar career in Japan. The 195-cm right-hander struck out 221 batters, issued 89 walks and was an All-Star.

He won his final four decisions and hasn't lost in six starts since Aug. 17.

Washington met with Darvish after his Aug. 6 start at Boston, a 9-2 loss in which he was tagged for six earned runs and 11 hits in 6? innings with nine strikeouts and four walks. Darvish has lost only once since, at Toronto on Aug. 17.

"Mainly, it's mental. I'm pitching with more of a strong mind and with confidence," Darvish said.

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Top-ranked Azarenka cruises into showdown against No. 2 Sharapova

Reach for it: Maria Sharapova attempts to play a shot against Petra Kvitova on Saturday in Stuttgart, Germany. Sharpova won 6-4, 7-6 (7-3). AP

STUTTGART, Germany — Top-ranked Victoria Azarenka was set to face No. 2 Maria Sharapova in the final of the Porsche Grand Prix on Sunday.

Azarenka cruised past Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 6-1, 6-3 in the first semifinal Saturday, and Sharapova outlasted No. 3 Petra Kvitova, the Wimbledon champion, 6-4, 7-6 (7-3).

Azarenka is seeking a tour-high fifth tournament title of the year.

She dominated the match against the fourth-ranked Radwanska, whose four losses of the year have come against Azarenka.

On match point, Azarenka fired a forehand winner to advance to the final. She is 29-1 for the year.

Sharapova is off to a promising start to her clay-court season. The Russian broke serve in the fifth game and did not face a break point of her own in the first set.

That changed in the second.

Kvitova held 11 break points in the set, but the Czech could not convert any.

She did convert her 12th — after saving a match point — to even the score at 6-6 and sent the second set into the tiebreaker. Sharapova made fewer mistakes and now seeks her first title of the year.

Azarenka leads Sharapova 5-3 in career meetings.

BARCELONA, Spain — Rafael Nadal crushed Fernando Verdasco for the 13th time in his career on Saturday to set up a fourth Barcelona Open final with longtime rival David Ferrer.

The Sunday showdown will be a repeat of the 2008, 2009 and 2011 finals which were all won by Nadal.

French Open champion Nadal, fresh off winning an unprecedented eighth straight title at Monte Carlo last weekend, overwhelmed Verdasco 6-0, 6-4 in just 85 minutes with four breaks of serve.

Third seed Ferrer had a tougher afternoon, requiring just over two hours in defeating huge-serving Canadian Milos Raonic 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-5).

"I played a great first set, and stayed focused for the entire match even if the second set was a lot more difficult," said Nadal.

"It wasn't that easy at all, Fernando is a tough player who has won the title here. This was a very satisfying win for me, I'm glad to be in another final and have the chance to win another time at this great event.

"David and I have always had tough matches and I'm expecting another one on Sunday."

Nadal has dominated the Barcelona event, winning six titles in seven previous appearances. On the one occasion he didn't play — he missed 2010 with knee problems — Verdasco took the honors.

Nadal's victory was his 38th victorious semifinal in a row on clay, with his last loss coming against Carlos Moya in August of 2003.

Raonic had turned in a breakthrough week on the clay of the Real Club de Tenis, winning all of his matches in straight sets.

He defeated Spaniard Nicolas Almagro and upset second-seeded, world No. 4 Andy Murray in the quarter-finals.

The 21-year-old, ranked 25th, threatened early in the opening set against Ferrer but could not convert on four break chances.

Raonic saved six set points before Ferrer finally clinched it in the tiebreaker from the Canadian's netted forehand.

In the second set, the pair stayed level-pegging, with Raonic saving the lone break points of the set in the 11th game.

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Orfevre, Buena Vista set for big showdown

Triple Crown champion Orfevre looks set to be the morning line favorite ahead of retiring superhorse Buena Vista for the 56th Arima Kinen on Sunday in what is shaping up to be a historic clash of the titans.

The 3-year-old Orfevre, who became just the seventh Triple Crown winner in Japanese racing history with victory in the Kikka-sho in October, was the early pick of the punters through Saturday's betting for the ?416 million Arima Kinen.

The Arima Kinen, which draws the curtain on the racing season, rivals only Britain's Grand National as the race with the highest turnover in the world. Last season, the 2,500-meter contest at Nakayama Racecourse raked in ?38.8 billion.

The first 10 horses of the field are chosen by fans.

Buena Vista, the top vote-getter who will retire after Sunday's race, is coming off victory in the Japan Cup on Nov. 27, the 5-year-old mare's sixth Grade 1 title.

She also has career earnings of close to ?1.4 billion, the most ever by a female horse in Japan.

A win in the Arima Kinen will give her No. 7, which would match the all-time high jointly held by Deep Impact, T M Opera O, Symboli Rudolf and Vodka — all Hall of Fame thoroughbreds.

Buena Vista has finished second in the Arima Kinen the last two years.

"She's got her confidence back after winning the Japan Cup," Buena Vista's jockey Yasunari Iwata said. "All I need to do is ride with belief in myself."

Orfevre has rattled off five straight graded wins and according to both trainer Yasutoshi Ikee and jockey Kenichi Ikezoe, is in even better form than he was when the colt crushed the competition in the 3,000-meter Kikka-sho.

The Arima Kinen will be Orfevre's first test against the older horses. In the 2005 race when Deep Impact ran as the unbeaten Triple Crown champion, he came up short, finishing runnerup to Heart's Cry.

"His time in the workout was fast, and he had good movement," Ikee said. "I'm more than satisfied with what I've seen."

The stellar field of 13 — after 3-year-old Pelusa was scratched early Saturday — also features the race's defending champion and Dubai World Cup holder Victoire Pisa, this year's two Tenno-sho winners Hiruno d'Amour (spring) and Tosen Jordan (autumn) as well as Takarazuka Kinen champion Earnestly.

Victoire Pisa fizzled to 13th in the Japan Cup — his first start since winning the Dubai World Cup back in March — but should vastly improve in performance and result this time.

"He's in much better shape without question," trainer Katsuhiko Summi said. "He's sharper and he's starting to show the competitive fire."

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