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.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later