Starter Yang Jien-fu's (陽建福) six shutout innings, coupled with relievers Osvaldo Martinez and Melquiades Rojas' three combined frames of stellar relief, propelled the second-place Sinon Bulls past the league-leading President Lions in a 2-0 triumph in Tainan on Saturday.
The win not only salvaged a 2-2 series split for the Bulls, it kept the heat on the Lions in their quest to win the second half for the automatic 1-0 lead in the upcoming Championship Series.
Slugger Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan's (張泰山) towering solo shot over the right-center fence broke a scoreless tie in the top of the fourth and gave the winner of the 2003 Most Valuable Player award 20 homers for the season to lead the league. Chang also holds huge leads over the next best hitter in total RBIs with 84 (59) and game-winning hits with 15 (9), making him a strong contender to repeat as the league's MVP for this year.
The Bulls' 2-0 shutout victory avenged their 4-0 loss on Friday at the hands of Lion second-year man Pan "Du Du" Wei-luen (
Offensively for the Lions, second baseman Yang Tung-yi (
Foreign veteran pitchers came through for the Brother Elephants in their three-game series against the Macoto Cobras as the defending champs took two out of three to remain within three games of the Lions.
After dropping Thursday's series opener by a whopping 6-0 final, the Elephants called on Japanese starter Nakagomi Sin to the mound in Game 2 on Friday in search for the series equalizer. The 34-year-old former Hanshin Tiger of the Nippon Professional Baseball League promptly responded by blanking the serpents in eight magnificent innings for his 12th win of the year. Sin's dominance off the mound made things quite easy for the Elephant lineup, which managed to squeeze a pair of runs off Cobra newcomer Michael Lyons on a two-run double by short stop Chen Rei-cheng (陳瑞振) in the 2-0 final. The American righty has been brilliant in all three of his starts (ERA of 1.157), but remains winless (0-2) thus far as his mates have managed to provide only one run on offense in the 20-plus innings that he has pitched.
The Cobras made things interesting by taking a brief 3-2 lead in Sunday's series finale at Tienmu on cleanup man Hsieh Jia-shien's (謝佳賢) two-run dinger off Elephant starter Jonathan Hurst in the top of the third, but Elephant catcher Chen Rei-chang's (陳瑞昌) two-run double in the bottom of the same inning would quickly reverse the Cobras' fortune and put the Elephants up for good in the 7-3 decision.
Hurst upped to his league-leading victory total to 16 with another gutsy performance, despite experiencing some obvious discomfort in his back which limited the veteran to just five innings of work for the game.
The La New Bears successfully defended their home turf by taking the deciding Game 3 of their three-game home stand against the Chinatrust Whales behind another strong effort by rookie lefty Wu Si-yo (
Wu bounced back from his first loss in over a month by recording his first career complete-game shutout in the 4-0 Bear victory. He held the Whale lineup to four hits while fanning ten, another personal-best for the young and upcoming star.
By the time Cameron Menzies finally left the arena on Monday, the blood gushing from the gash on his right hand had trickled down his wrist, part of his forearm and — somehow — up to his face. Smeared in crimson and regret, and already mouthing sheepish apologies to the crowd, he disappeared down the steps, pursued by a stern-looking Matt Porter, the chief executive of Professional Darts Corp (PDC). The physical scars from Menzies’ encounter with the Alexandra Palace drinks table after his 3-2 defeat against Charlie Manby at the Darts World Championship would be gone within a few weeks.
Manchester United on Monday blew the lead three times to miss out on moving up to fifth in the Premier League as AFC Bournemouth would not be beaten in a thrilling 4-4 draw at Old Trafford. United have lost just once in their past 10 games, but Ruben Amorim would be frustrated as more points at home were frittered away despite arguably the best attacking display of his reign in charge. Amad Diallo and Casemiro gave the hosts a halftime lead either side of Antoine Semenyo’s equalizer. Two Bournemouth goals from Evanilson and Marcus Tavernier in seven minutes at the start of the
LOW-GOAL SHOOT-OUT: Of the nine penalties in the shoot-out, only three went in, with Flamengo’s Samuel Lino, and Vitinha and Nuno Mendes of PSG netting Matvei Safonov on Wednesday made four straight penalty saves in a penalty shoot-out to help Paris Saint-Germain beat Flamengo in the Intercontinental Cup final and win a sixth trophy of the year. The Russian goalkeeper was thrown in the air by his teammates after his exploits in the shoot-out, which was won 2-1 by PSG after a 1-1 draw after extra-time. It completed a trophy-laden 12 months for the French team, who had already won the Trophee des Champions, Ligue 1, the Coupe de France, the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Super Cup — also on penalties against Tottenham Hotspur in
Italian Luca de Aliprandini described Saturday’s World Cup giant slalom at Val d’Isere as the hardest race of his life, coming two days after his Swiss partner Michelle Gisin suffered a heavy fall in training which required neck surgery. De Aliprandini finished 26th in the men’s event won by Loic Meillard, but the result paled into insignificance with two-time Olympic ski champion Gisin in hospital with injuries to her wrist, knee and cervical spine (neck). “It was Michelle’s wish that I race here. I couldn’t say no to her, but it was the toughest race of my entire life,” an emotional De
RSS