Osvaldo Martinez's made local baseball history on Thursday at Hsinchuang by beating the Brother Elephants 6-1 for his 101st career victory.
It was the third attempt by the Sinon Bulls' fireballer from the Dominican Republics to break Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League record for most wins after he had tied it earlier this season.
Beating the Elephants, the Bulls' archrivals from northern Taiwan on his record-setting night, was just icing on the cake for Martinez as he looks to add to his already-impressive career victory total with each win from this point on.
PHOTO: CPBL
The game between the nation's two most popular squads began with the Elephants drawing first blood in the bottom of the second inning on cleanup man Peng "Chia Chia" Cheng-ming's solo blast to straight-away center off Martinez for an early 1-0 lead.
Then came the defending champion's three-run fourth which started with second baseman Huang "Brother Tung" Chung-yi's run-scoring single, before power slugger Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan's two-run shot to center-right made it 3-1 in favor of the Bulls.
The score would remain 3-1 until the top of the ninth when Bulls' right fielder Chang Jia-hao and leadoff man Tseng Hua-wei knocked home three more runs with an RBI liner to left and a two-run, stand-up double, respectively, in the 6-1 final.
Martinez allowed the lone Elephants run for the game by allowing four hits over seven strong innings for the win, while his counterpart Ichiri Muto suffered his first setback of the season to fall to 3-1 for the year.
Cobras 8, Lions 1
Macoto Cobras' rookie right-hander Lin En-yu earned his second win as a pro on Thursday in Pingtong with an impressive complete-game effort that was one out away from being a shutout.
The 8-1 decision over the President Lions carried a special label in that most of the serpents' scoring was done by a pair of former Lions who were released during the offseason.
Left fielder Ko Jien-fong made sure the Lions would regret the decision to let him go with his first home run of the season in the bottom of the third when he drove a pitch from Lions starter Lin Yueh-ping over the right field fence to give the Cobras a quick 2-0 lead.
Four runs and four innings later, designated hitter Luo Ming-ching would add another homer to his career total of 109 when launched a towering shot to deep-right off former teammate Tsao Jung-yang to give the Cobras a commanding 8-0 lead.
The 16-year veteran also proved the Lions' decision to release him imprudent after he had selflessly spent his entire career up to that point with the big cats.
The loss by Lin Yueh-ping was his first of the season.
The Lions' first-round draft pick in 2005 is now 2-1 in the nine game appearances (four starts).
Bears 6, Whales 3
The La New Bears started off the week with a 6-3 win over the second-placed Chinatrust Whales to snap their previous six-game winless streak.
It took a three-run fourth inning by the Bears to turn an early 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 lead, highlighted by shortstop Lin Chih-sheng's solo homer and catcher Chen Fong-ming's double that sent both runners home.
Rookie Bears starter Hsu Chih-hua pocketed his first career victory with a solid performance, allowing three runs (all unearned) on seven hits over six innings.
Whales 6, Bears 1
Tseng Han-chou's three-RBI night was more than ample to lead the Whales past the home Bears for a 6-1 win in Game 2 of their four-game series this week.
The Whales never trailed in the game as starter Emiliano Giron kept the Bears off the scoreboard in the six innings he pitched for a comfortable 5-0 lead, before reliever Shen Yu-jeh finally surrendered the Bears' lone run of the game on a run-scoring single in the bottom of the seventh to break up the shutout.
The Seattle Mariners signed former Hanshin infielder Dave Hansen to a minor league contract on Thursday, and he was to join the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers for their game at Salt Lake City.
The 36-year-old Hansen spent the first half of last season with Seattle, then was traded to San Diego last July. He went to spring training this year with the Chicago Cubs but was released before camp ended.
The Mariners initially acquired Hansen though the six-player trade in January 2004 where Seattle unloaded Jeff Cirillo. Hansen, used mostly as a pinch-hitter, hit .282 with two home runs in 57 games with Seattle.
He's among the career leaders in career pinch-hits, ranking fifth with 137, and he ranks seventh with 15 pinch-hit homers. Among active players, he is second with 22 career pinch-hit doubles.
Hansen has played with Los Angeles (1990-1996, 1999-2002), the Cubs (1997) San Diego (2003-2004) and Seattle (2004). He spent the 1998 season with Hanshin in Japan.
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