Speculation about former First Securities Agan skipper Hsu Sheng-ming's (
It's been less than three weeks since Hsu announced his resignation from the top post of the struggling Agan to take responsibility for the team's last-placed performance in the league standings. Hsu was named manager of the Agan in the newly aligned CPBL in late January after having spent three years as the manager of the Kaoping Fala in the former Taiwan Major League (TML).
Hsu will assist Whale pitching coach Asano Keishi in preparing his pitching staff in the heated title race against the league-leading Sinon Bulls, Huang said.
The Whales now seem to be the only team with a chance to challenge the Bulls down the stretch.
"With Hsu's proven professional competence, we are certain he will be a positive addition to this team."
Huang was quoted as saying by a local Chinese-language newspaper.
Hsu brings over 11 years of head coaching experience. An outstanding pitcher in his own right, Hsu demonstrated his outstanding coaching ability by leading the former Weichuan Dragons to three consecutive championships from 1997 to 1999, an achievement that earned him the Manager of the Year honors for each of those years. He is also the only manager to have headed a team in both the CPBL and the former TML.
Hsu will also serve as executive head coach for Taiwan's national team in the upcoming Asian Championship, whose top two winners will earn the right to take part in the 2004 Olympic baseball competition.
Round Up
The Brother Elephants split the first two games of their four-game series against the hosting President Lions in Tainan earlier this week.
Lions starter Dai Long-shui (
The Lions offense spotted him a 2-0 first-inning lead and that was all Dai needed for his third win of the season. Dai went eight innings, yielding two runs on eight hits. Keeping his pitch count under 100, he remained efficient and did not allow a single walk.
Taking the complete-game loss for the Elephants was starter Wang Ching-li (
American pitchers
Game 2 of the series on Wednesday featured a pair of American pitchers: Joe Davenport of the Lions against Jonathan Hurst of the Elephants.
The Elephants breezed through the first seven innings of play while building a commanding 5-0 lead en route to a 6-2 win.
The Lions hitters were held to four hits through seven innings by Hurst, whose fastballs were clocked at over 145kph to complement his off-speed pitches that found the strike zone early and often.
The Lions finally got on the board with two runs in the eighth on four hits, one of which could have been scored as an error against the Elephants shortstop Chen Rei-cheng (
With one out and runners at the corners, Chen missed a two-hopper that would have turned into an inning-ending double-play.
Officials credited the play as a hit that made both runs against Hurst in the eighth earned.
The win extended Hurst's winning streak to four and ended Davenport's five-game winning streak at home.
Upcoming Games
The Elephants will round out a four-game series in Tainan today and tomorrow against the Lions in their second-to-last home-stand before the end of the first half of the season.
The Agan will visit the Makoto Gida for three games in Hsinchu (yesterday), Hsinchuang (today), and in Tienmu on Sunday, in a showdown between the two former TML teams.
All eyes will be watching the matchup between the Bulls and the Whales this weekend as the top-two teams battle in a three-game series that could determine the title for the first half of the season. All three games are in Taichung yesterday, tomorrow and Sunday.
Trailing the Bulls by 2.5 games, the Whales can take the lead for the first time in the league standings with a sweep of the Bulls, a feat that no team has accomplished all season long.
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
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
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier