The 5-1 final in favor of the Bulls prevented a clean sweep by the Elephants in the three-game series and forced a 10-all split between the two rivals in their 20 regular season meetings, which further highlighted the evenness between the two clubs ahead of the Championship Series.
Pitching for the first time in nearly six weeks, Bull starter Tsai Chung-nan (蔡仲南) allowed just one run on four hits in seven strong innings in a brilliant performance. The victory netted Tsai his 10th win of the season and gave the Bulls' fans a glimpse of hope in finishing the season in grand fashion. After winning the first-half title with relative ease, the Bulls have not been as dominating in the second half primarily because a serious shoulder injury has sidelined Tsai for some time.
Last season's Rookie of the Year, who won nine games for the Bulls in the first half could have given the Bulls at least five more wins during the time he missed to keep pace with the Elephants.
Tsai's roaring return to the mound could very well be the missing piece in the Bulls' march to its first Championship trophy because he can be the third starter behind team ace Jeff Andra and Osvaldo Martinez to solidify a rotation that formerly had only two legitimate starters.
Offensively for the Bulls, the three triples during the four-run sixth in Sunday's contest not only tied the league record for most triples in an inning, but also convinced skipper Chen Wei-cheng (
The Lions followed their two shutout wins over the Makoto Gida earlier in the week with a 10-2 rout on Friday night. The win kept their title hopes alive for the day until the Elephants' title-clinching win in Tienmu on Saturday night.
Picking up where they left off in games 1 and 2 of the series, the Lions offense spotted starter Jose Parra of the Dominican Republic a five-run first-inning lead on five hits.
The lead proved to be ample because Parra kept the Gida off the board in the six innings he pitched by yielding only a pair of hits and fanning three. It wasn't until the top of ninth that the Gida offense finally broke through for two runs against Lion reliever Shen Po-chang (沈柏蒼) to snap their record-setting 36-inning scoreless streak.
Having learned that their postseason hope had been eliminated by the Elephants' victory over the Bulls earlier on Saturday, the Lions fell short in their rally against the Gida in Tainan as they lost by a score of 1-4.
Gida starter Shad Williams went the distance in the two-hitter as he pocketed the first win of the season. Williams had been winless in his six previous starts since joining the team in early August.
Thursday night's 4-3 thriller gave the visiting Chinatrust Whales the last laugh against a home First Securities Agan squad that led for most of the game.
In a classic seesaw battle, the Agan struck first with a pair of runs in the first. It wasn't until the top of the eighth that the Whales knotted the game at 2-all with two straight wild pitches by Agan reliever Hsu Wen-hsiung (
The Agan would retake the lead in the bottom of the eighth on right fielder Tsai Shih-fan's (蔡士凡) solo homer, only to see it disappear an inning later. The bottom of the order for the Whales managed to string together three straight hits against Agan closer Lee Fong-hua (李風華) to put the Whales up for good.
"Why bother having these relievers around?" a furious Agan manager Tsai Rong-chung (
The two teams had to settle for a 1-1 tie in the series because Sunday night' s finale was postponed to Oct. 6 due to wet weather.
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