The hottest things selling in town, next to the SARS-proof N95 masks, were brooms that fans brought out to the ballparks this weekend, because all three series in the CPBL actions ended in sweeps.
Leading off was the Sinon Bulls' four-game series sweep against the President Lions, which began last week with a one-game lead over the Bulls in league standings.
The Bulls took a two game lead from before going to a hostile Tainan Stadium on Friday night, where they quieted the crowd by beating the Lions 5-3. Bulls starter Jeff Andra was the hero on Friday night as he gave up only three runs on nine hits over eight solid innings for his sixth win of the season. Saturday night's 5-1 Bulls stampede featured a stellar performance by starter Osvaldo Martinez, whose four-hit effort over eight innings earned him the game-MVP honor. The seven strikeouts by Martinez gave him a total of 53 for the season, making him No.3 in the league.
PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YI, TAIPEI TIMES
The Lions are now in the middle of a six-game losing streak.
"Over the course of a season, it's normal for every team to hit some highs and lows," first-year manager Hsieh Chang-hern (謝長亨) said after Saturday's loss. "As long as our players do what they are supposed to do, I'm sure we'll get over this very soon."
ChinaTrust Whales, began last week in third-place, without losing the last eight games. Behind an offense that has cranked out 32 runs and a pitching staff that has yielded only 14 runs in the last four games, the Whales proceeded to sweep the struggling Makoto Gida in a four-game series to take sole control of the second-place spot in league standings. The last time that the Whales suffered a defeat was on April 18th against the President Lions in a 5-9 contest.
Designated hitter Hung Chi-fong's (洪啟峰) latest hitting spree (nine for 14 in the last four games) was the main reason that the Whales are enjoying their first sweep of the season after Sunday night's 4-2 victory over the Gida.
Hung now leads all hitters in the league with a .400 batting average. The Gida dropped a notch down to No.5 in league standings.
Last but not least, the Brother Elephants' swept a three-game series against the First Securities Agan, which put the Elephants two games ahead of the Gida and firmly fourth place. The visiting Elephants set the tone for the series by winning the opening game on Thursday night in Kaohsiung, 11-1. That turned out to be the only run that the Agan would put on the board the rest of the series, thanks to two outstanding showings by the Elephants' pitching staff on Saturday and Sunday that held the Agan scoreless for a total of 21 innings over the course of the three games.
Sunday night's match-up between the two teams was a classic pitching duel as the Elephants sent ace hurler Jonathan Hurst to the mound against Agan ace Liang Rue-hao (梁如豪). Bothered by nagging injuries since mid-March, Liang turned in one of his best performances of the season by taking a no-hitter into the eighth before giving up two singles and handing the ball to reliever Hsu Wen-hsiung (許文雄) in a scoreless game.
Not to be outdone by Liang, Hurst also kept the Agan hitters at bay by scattering five harmless hits over nine innings of work and dodging a big bullet in the top of the ninth to keep the game scoreless. With a runner on third and one out, Hurst managed to strike out one flied out to close the ninth.
"The key was that [Agan] didn't take advantage of the scoring opportunity in the ninth, and that turned the luck to our side," Elephants Manager Lin Yi-tseng (林易增) said after the game.
In extra innings, the Elephants bats suddenly came alive, blowing the game wide open. Leading off the 10th for the Elephants was designated hitter Hsu Ming-lang's (許閔嵐) single to right, which triggered a six-run inning that brought 11 Elephants batters to the plate.
Although the final score of 6-0 was not indicative of how closely the game was actually played, the combined scoring margin of 24-to-1 between the two teams for the series indicates the dominance that the Elephants had over the Agan.
This was the second consecutive series that these Elephants managed to win, after having lost all but one series previously this season.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but