It was not too long ago that the Macoto Cobras stood at the top of the Chinese Professional Baseball League standings, leading the CPBL with a below-2.5 ERA. But a recent lack of late-game relief pitching has cost the once high-flying serpents. After maintaining substantial leads, the Cobras have lost two consecutive games in the 10th inning. Closer Huang Chin-chih ( Huang's sudden inability to find the strike zone must have the former Triple-Crown winner of the Taiwan Major League scratching his head. "The starters are carrying this team right now," baseball commentator Tseng Wen-cheng (曾文誠) said, referring to the starting trio of Lin Ying-jeh (林英傑), Kleber Ojima, and Lee Ming-jing (李明進) "The Cobras have won games where the starters went the distance and not have to rely on the bullpen to bail them out." Lee Ming-jing has left the pen to replace a struggling Yang Chi-jia ( Wrap Up Monday's makeup game between the Brother Elephants and the President Lions in Hsinchuang put the Elephants on high alert as the 1-0 decision in favor of the big cats not only cut the Elephants lead to a half game over the Lions, it showed how helpless the Elephants lineup can be against Lions ace closer Michael Garcia. The American righty retired the side in the eighth and ninth innings by striking out the last five Elephant batters. As for the Lions offense, the lone run for the game came on a two-out single by shortstop Yang Seng ( The Chinatrust Whales followed their three-game sweep of the Sinon Bulls with two more victories against the Cobras earlier this week. Tuesday's 2-0 10th-inning win made a winner out of closer Dario Veras of the Dominican Republic when a throwing error by Cobra catcher Ko Liang-chung's ( The Whales had to overcome a two-run deficit in the 10th inning on Wednesday to beat the Bulls 6-4 on Wednesday. A poor throw that sailed wide to deep left by the Cobras catcher Hsu Chih-hao ( Cobras reliever Chen Chih-cheng ( Upcoming Games Game 3 and 4 between the Whales and the serpents will be at Hsinchuang tonight and Tienmu tomorrow afternoon as the Whales look to make it two straight series sweeps. The Whales face a red-hot Lin Ying-jeh, who has allowed only one run in the past 17 innings. The three-game series this week between the league-leading Elephants and the Bulls will be critical to the Elephants' defense of their half-game lead over the second-place Lions. With the big cats expecting to feast off the La New Bears in a three-game home sweep in Tainan, the Elephants had better be prepared to win all three of their face-offs with the Bulls. Anything less than a clean sweep will probably mean that there will be a new league leader on Monday morning.
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