Sinon Bulls' narrow 2-1 victory over the President Lions in Tainan on Wednesday not only gave them the second-half title, but more importantly the best overall record (53-6-42) for the year, earning the defending champs a first-round bye in the postseason play.
Game 1 of the playoffs series between the Macoto Cobras and the Lions is scheduled for 6pm tonight at Tienmu.
Because of a brand-new postseason playing format that includes a wildcard team (defined as the team with the best overall record, but did not win either half of the regular season) for the first time in league history, this year's postseason will begin with the Cobras (first-half champs) playing a best-of-five series against the Lions (wildcard) before the winners take on the Bulls in the best-of-seven Taiwan Series.
PHOTO: SINON BULLS
The second-half title did not come so easily for the Bulls as they fought off tough competition from the Lions, the Cobras and the La New Bears, all of which remained in the title hunt until the very last week of play.
Winning five of their final seven contests, three of which had been decided by a single run, the Bulls somehow managed to get the job done without having to resort to any one particular individual.
It was staff ace Lenin Picota whose nine innings of shutout ball put his team in position to beat the Cobras 1-0 in extra innings on Oct. 9.
Then came shortstop Chang Jia-hao's game-winning single on Oct. 11, which capped a four-run ninth to help the Bulls edge past the Brother Elephants with a nail-biting 6-5 triumph.
To top them all, it was outfielder Tseng Hua-wei's two-run triple on Wednesday night that silenced a hos-tile Tainan crowd, as the Bulls held on for the 2-1 title-clinching win.
"I don't know what it is, but our guys somehow find a way to win. It may be legging out a grounder for an infield single, or stretching a long single into a double, or coming up with a key strikeout late in a game, somehow, we all got the job done," Manager Liu Rong-hua said it best.
His Bulls will have a week to rest and prepare before next weekend's Taiwan Series, a well-deserved break given the bumpy ride that they had taken to make it this far.
Upcoming Games
The Cobras will host a three-game set at Tienmu this weekend in the best-of-five series versus the Lions before they move back to Tainan for Games 4 and 5 of the series (if necessary).
All eyes will be on the Cobras' local pitching trio -- consisting of lefty ace Lin Ying-jeh (the strikeout leader in regular season), rookie sensation Lin En-yu (ERA leader in the regular season) and Hsu Chu-jien (eleven-game winner with one of the nastiest sliders in the league) -- as they come face to face with a Lions offense that ranked dead last among the three playoffs teams in total run production (409) during the regular season, in what could be a very short series.
Inter’s defense of their Italian Serie A title was hit with a setback on Sunday as they lost 1-0 at home to AS Roma, while Scott McTominay netted a brace as SSC Napoli beat Torino 2-0 to go top of the table. No fixtures were played on Friday or Saturday because of the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, meaning the full round of Serie A matches took place on Sunday and yesterday. Matias Soule’s first-half strike for Roma knocked Inter off top spot earlier in the day before new Napoli opened up a three-point buffer with victory in Sunday’s
Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa yesterday set a women’s only world record of 2 hours, 15 minutes, 50 seconds as she won the London Marathon, while Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe put a star-studded men’s field to the sword. For 28-year-old Assefa it was ample compensation for finishing runner-up in London and the Paris Olympics last year — especially as bitter Dutch rival, the Ethiopia-born Sifan Hassan, finished third. Assefa dropped Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei as the race, played out in blazing sunshine and with thousands lining the route, entered its business end. She came home almost three minutes clear of the Kenyan. Hassan, who beat her in
FOCUS: ‘We came out here with a goal in mind ... to keep our foot on their throat and on their neck, and continue to play 48 minutes of basketball,’ Donovan Mitchell said The Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday thrashed the Miami Heat to cruise into the next round of the NBA playoffs as the Golden State Warriors battled past the Houston Rockets 109-106 to move to the brink of a series victory. After pounding Miami 124-87 in game three on Saturday, No.1 Eastern Conference seeds Cleveland once again piled on the misery for their outclassed opponents with a crushing 138-83 victory to complete a 4-0 series win. The 55-point drubbing was the largest series-clinching victory in NBA playoff history and sets up a series against either the Indiana Pacers or Milwaukee Bucks in
Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds said it felt like an “impossible dream” when fellow Hollywood A-lister Rob McElhenney first floated the idea of buying soccer club Wrexham, along with a pitch for a documentary. The ultimate goal was reaching the Premier League. Four years after they purchased the north Wales outfit, Wrexham are one league away from achieving their lofty goal after a 3-0 win over Charlton Athletic on Saturday saw them promoted for a record third consecutive time. “We were standing there doing a press conference four years ago, and said our goal is to make it to the Premier League, and
RSS