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.
Tainan TSG Hawks slugger Steven Moya, who is leading the CPBL in home runs, has withdrawn from this weekend’s All-Star Game after the unexpected death of his wife. Moya’s wife began feeling severely unwell aboard a plane that landed at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday evening. She was rushed to a hospital, but passed away, the Hawks said in a statement yesterday. The franchise is assisting Moya with funeral arrangements and hopes fans who were looking forward to seeing him at the All-Star Game can understand his decision to withdraw. According to Landseed Medical Clinic, whose staff attempted to save Moya’s wife,
Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt yesterday backed Nick Champion de Crespigny to be the team’s “roving scavenger” after handing him a shock debut in the opening Test against the British and Irish Lions Test in Brisbane. Hard man Champion de Crespigny, who spent three seasons at French side Castres before moving to the Western Force this year, is to get his chance tomorrow with first-choice blindside flanker Rob Valetini not fully fit. His elevation is an eye-opener, preferred to Tom Hooper, but Schmidt said he had no doubt about his abilities. “I keep an eye on the Top 14 having coached there many years
ON A KNEE: In the MLB’s equivalent of soccer’s penalty-kicks shoot-out, the game was decided by three batters from each side taking three swings each off coaches Kyle Schwarber was nervous. He had played in Game 7 of the MLB World Series and homered for the US in the World Baseball Classic (WBC), but he had never walked up to the plate in an All-Star Game swing-off. No one had. “That’s kind of like the baseball version of a shoot-out,” Schwarber said after homering on all three of his swings, going down to his left knee on the final one, to overcome a two-homer deficit. That held up when Jonathan Aranda fell short on the American League’s final three swings, giving the National League a 4-3 swing-off win after
Seattle’s Cal Raleigh defeated Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero 18-15 in Monday’s final to become the first catcher to win the Major League Baseball Home Run Derby. The 28-year-old switch-hitter, who leads MLB with 38 homers this season, won US$1 million by capturing the special event for sluggers at Atlanta’s Truist Park ahead of yesterday’s MLB All-Star Game. “It means the world,” Raleigh said. “I could have hit zero home runs and had just as much fun. I just can’t believe I won. It’s unbelievable.” Raleigh, who advanced from the first round by less than 25mm on a longest homer tiebreaker, had his father
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