For the second year in a row, the Uni-President Lions were crowned CPBL champions yesterday.
Starting pitcher Luther Hackman threw a dominating four-hit complete game shutout, stifling a hapless Brother Elephants lineup 4-0 in last night’s decisive game seven in Tainan.
Hackman took series MVP honors as the Lions won the Taiwan Series in seven games for the second straight year.
PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YI, TAIPEI TIMES
The 6’4 right-hander won two key games during the series, throwing 17 consecutive scoreless innings between game four and game seven.
The former major leaguer simply took over the rubber match, blanking the Elephants on 112 pitches, striking out four and walking two.
Hackman overpowered the Elephants with 145kph-plus fastballs, knee-bending curveballs and changeups, taking advantage of an often impatient Elephants offense desperate to manufacture runs.
DH Chen Lian-hong hit a two-run home run and catcher Kao Zhi-Gang scored a run and made a key defensive play in the top of the fifth inning, preventing a run by blocking the plate skillfully on Liu Fu-hao’s throw home as third baseman Chen Rui-Zhen attempted to tag on a fly ball.
Elephants starting pitcher Mai Chia-Rui, MVP in Game 3, took the loss, lasting just three innings.
He was lifted for reliever Matthew Perisho in the fourth with no outs and two men on base.
With the victory, the Lions will go to Japan to face South Korean champions SK Wyvrens and the winner of the Japan series in the Konami Cup.
With the season finished, the CPBL heads toward an uncertain future, as it is currently enmeshed in a match-fixing scandal implicating at least 14 players on at least two teams.
The scandal has caused the collapse of one franchise — the d-Media T-Rex — and at least one other is in danger as well.
Last night, however, Luther Hackman and the Lions could briefly forget the league’s troubles and celebrate their back-to-back titles.
One of two tropical depressions that formed off Taiwan yesterday morning could turn into a moderate typhoon by the weekend, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Tropical Depression No. 21 formed at 8am about 1,850km off the southeast coast, CWA forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said. The weather system is expected to move northwest as it builds momentum, possibly intensifying this weekend into a typhoon, which would be called Mitag, Lee said. The radius of the storm is expected to reach almost 200km, she said. It is forecast to approach the southeast of Taiwan on Monday next week and pass through the Bashi Channel
The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency as well as long-term residency in Taiwan has decreased, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that the reduction of Chinese spouses staying or living in Taiwan is only one facet reflecting the general decrease in the number of people willing to get married in Taiwan. The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency last year was 7,123, down by 2,931, or 29.15 percent, from the previous year. The same census showed that the number of Chinese spouses applying for long-term residency and receiving approval last year stood at 2,973, down 1,520,
EASING ANXIETY: The new guide includes a section encouraging people to discuss the threat of war with their children and teach them how to recognize disinformation The Ministry of National Defense’s All-Out Defense Mobilization Agency yesterday released its updated civil defense handbook, which defines the types of potential military aggression by an “enemy state” and self-protection tips in such scenarios. The agency has released three editions of the handbook since 2022, covering information from the preparation of go-bags to survival tips during natural disasters and war. Compared with the previous edition, released in 2023, the latest version has a clearer focus on wartime scenarios. It includes a section outlining six types of potential military threats Taiwan could face, including destruction of critical infrastructure and most undersea cables, resulting in
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said that it expected to issue a sea warning for Typhoon Ragasa this morning and a land warning at night as it approached Taiwan. Ragasa intensified from a tropical storm into a typhoon at 8am yesterday, the CWA said, adding that at 2pm, it was about 1,110km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip. The typhoon was moving northwest at 13kph, with sustained winds of up to 119kph and gusts reaching 155kph, the CWA Web site showed. Forecaster Liu Pei-teng (劉沛滕) said that Ragasa was projected to strengthen as it neared the Bashi Channel, with its 200km
RSS