Tsai Ying-fong pitched no-hit ball until two outs into the sixth inning to help lead the La New Bears past the Chinatrust Whales in a 3-2 win at Kaohsiung on Sunday night.
The rookie right-hander had been under the weather all week long, but still rose to the occasion on the mound to finish six magnificent innings with just one hit for his eleventh win of the season.
Pan Chung-wei's solo homer off Whales starter Su Tseh-yi in the bottom of the fourth put the home Bears ahead 1-0. They tacked on two more runs in the seventh with second baseman Chiang Chih-tsong's RBI single and catcher Chen Fong-min's sacrifice fly to make it 3-0.
PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YI, TAIPEI TIMES
The two seventh-inning runs proved to be vital for the Bears as the Whales struck for two runs against ace closer Ramon Morel in the top of the ninth to make it interesting late in the game.
That was as close as the Whales would get as Morel quickly regrouped and retired the final two Whales to secure the Bears win.
Su took the loss, allowing a respectable three runs on six hits over six-plus innings in another quality start. Nevertheless, Su was the victim of a lack of run support to lose for only the second time this year.
Offensively for the Bears, three different players had multi-hit outings on the night, led by Chiang's 2-for-3 effort with an RBI.
Lions 6, Elephants 5
Homers lit up the Tainan sky on Sunday night on the Brother Elephants' visit to the President Lions as the two teams combined for six long balls in a 26-hit slugfest before the Lions escaped with a narrow 6-5 home victory.
For a moment, the Elephants -- winners of two impressive come-from-behind wins over the Whales earlier last week -- seemed ready to pull off another late-game comeback with runners on second and third and one out in a 6-4 game. Things looked promising for the pachyderms when Peng "Chia Chia" Cheng-min's sacrifice fly to right off reliever Lin Yueh-ping actually got his team to be within one run of the Lions with a runner on third and red-hot swinger Chen "the Golden Warrior" Chih-yuan due up at the plate.
But after Chen fouled off several pitches from Lin, he finally grounded out to short to end the game, stranding the tying run at third.
Lions starter Pan "Du Du" Wei-luen collected his twelfth win of the year by pitching six innings of three-run ball for the home cats. He gave up nine hits and fanned five in another quality start.
He had fellow outfielder Liu Fu-hao to thank for his "W" because the third-year speedster's 3-for-4 batting scored three runs with on a homer and two RBIs. Liu also sparkled in the field with a diving catch in the ninth that saved at least one run.
Brother starter Wu Bao-shien was hit with the loss for allowing five runs in as many innings on ten hits in a rare start. Wu is normally a reliever for the Elephants.
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