Back-to-back wins over the Macoto Cobras earlier this week has upped the La New Bears' victory total to 19 and counting for the second half and 37 and counting for the year, setting the new-and-improved club well on its way to 40 victories for the year.
FILE PHOTO: CPBL
Despite a slow start, the Bears (formerly the First Securities Agan) have gone on a recent surge by going 10-5 in their last 15 contests, playing above-.500 ball over a ten-game stretch for the first time in team history.
Even though his troops are still quite a way from their ultimate goal -- winning a league championship -- rookie skipper Hung Yi-chung (
Leading the way for the Bears' recent offensive outpour are rookie sluggers Lin Chih-sheng (
Tuesday night's series opener in Hsinchuang had the Cobras drawing first blood on RBI singles by Shih Shiang-kai (
Other than the two-run third, Bear starter Liang Rue-hao (
Game 2 on Wednesday featured a classic pitchers' duel where Bear starter Cory Bailey outpitched Cobra lefty ace Lin Ying-jeh (
The loss was Lin Ying-jeh's first in over two months, snapping his seven-game winning streak that began ironically with a win over these same Bears on July 27th.
Offensively for the Bears, the spot light fell on Shih Chih-wei, whose 2-for-4 night with the game-winning RBI earned him the game-MVP honor for the night.
Also in action were the Elephants in a make-up game against the league-leading President Lions on Tuesday where Peng Cheng-ming's three-run homer paved the way to victory for the Elephants in the 7-2 decision.
A wild Yokota Hisanori issued an uncharacteristic six walks over the six frames he worked, negating an otherwise decent, two-hit effort. The 37-year-old former All-Star for the Hanshin Tigers of Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball League has not been sharp in his last three outings, going 1-2 with a 17-plus ERA in the same span. His inability to give the Elephants the quality starts that they have grown accustomed to could mean trouble as the race for the second-half title heats up down the stretch.
Huang Kwei-yu's (黃貴裕) two-run, opposite-field double in the bottom of the seventh lifted the Chinatrust Whales past the Sinon Bulls in Wednesday's 5-4 thriller. With his team down 3-4, Huang drove the pitch from Sinon set-up man Ho Chi-shien (何紀賢) down the first-base line to put his team ahead for good and made a winner out of fellow rookie reliever Tseng Jau-hao (曾兆豪) in his first career victory.
The Philadelphia 76ers, fueled by 36 points from Tyrese Maxey and a triple-double from Joel Embiid, on Thursday beat the Houston Rockets 128-122 in an NBA overtime thriller. Cameroonian big man Embiid scored 32 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and handed out 10 assists, posting the ninth triple-double of his career to help the Sixers end the Rockets’ three-game winning streak. Rockets star Kevin Durant scored 36 points and Amen Thompson added 17, but Thompson was scoreless in the fourth quarter. Even so, the Rockets led by nine midway through the final frame, Maxey tying it at 115-115 with 40.1 seconds left. Durant missed a
Tobias Harris on Monday scored 25 points as the Detroit Pistons held off the Boston Celtics to score a 104-103 victory in their top-of-the-table Eastern Conference showdown. Harris was one of four Detroit players to finish in double figures, with Jalen Duren adding 18 points and point guard Cade Cunningham scoring 16 points with 14 assists. The win sees Detroit extend their lead at the top of the Eastern Conference to 31-10, 5.5 games ahead of second-placed Boston, who fell to 26-16 with the defeat. Jaylen Brown led the Celtics scoring with 32 points and almost snatched victory in the
The Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo on Friday said that he will probably be out for an extended period after hurting his right calf again after a similar injury caused him to miss eight games earlier this season. Antetokounmpo had his right calf wrapped in the first half of their 102-100 loss to the Denver Nuggets. He did not appear comfortable the rest of the night and left for good with 34 seconds remaining. “At the end, I could not move no more, so I had to stop playing,” Antetokounmpo said. The two-time NBA Most Valuable Player said he expected to undergo an MRI
The chaotic scenes which tarnished Sunday’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final will forever overshadow a tournament that had until that point been a great success for hosts Morocco, on and off the pitch. Everything appeared set up for Walid Regragui’s Morocco side to cement their status as Africa’s preeminent footballing force as the continent’s top-ranked team made it to the final against Senegal in Rabat. Home advantage unquestionably brought extra pressure on the 2022 FIFA World Cup semi-finalists, but it also perhaps played into their hands for the controversial penalty award at the end of normal time in the
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