Erupting for 20 runs to tie a club record, the President Lions thrashed the Chinatrust Whales by a 20-5 final in Tainan on Sunday for a clean two-game sweep of the marine creatures.
The home-team Lions teed off against the Whales dismal pitching by plating five runs in each of the first two innings off three different Whales hurlers for a commanding 10-0 lead.
They tacked on six more in the fourth inning to make the result a foregone conclusion long before the final out was called.
Every starter for Lions had at least one hit and a run in the 21-hit slugfest, highlighted by Shih Jin-dien and Yang Song-hsuen's four-hit efforts in the game.
Catcher Kao Chih-kang also hit a home run for the first time this season and had three hits in five appearances at the plate for the night to reach a career-high five RBIs to lead the overpowering Lions attack.
Spotted a 16-run lead, Lions starter Tsao Jung-yang cruised through the first five innings without surrendering a run before finally allowing two in the sixth and another in the seventh on a total of nine hits for the easy victory.
Picking up the lopsided loss for the Whales was starter Kao Jien-san, who allowed all five of the hitters he faced to reach before he was relieved by fellow bullpen mate Du Chang-wei.
Offensively for the Whales, Chen Jia-hong and Kuo Dai-yong's homers were the lone highlights on a night that the Lions simply were too much for the Whales staff to handle in every single aspect of the game.
Elephants 17, Cobras 9
The Lions were not the only team with the hot bats on Sunday as the Brother Elephants also pounded out 17 runs on 16 hits off seven different Macoto Cobras pitchers to claim a 17-9 win over the serpents in Tianmu for their own two-game sweep.
The landslide victory marked the Elephants' 800th in club history.
They are only the second team in the league to reach that milestone. The Lions are the other team to post 800 wins.
Every one of the Elephants starters also collected at least one run and a hit in the nearly four-hour long contest.
The Elephants jumped to a 13-0 lead over the first two innings before adding three more runs in the third to put the game away before the Cobras even realized what had hit them.
Wang Jing-li was credited with his first win of the season for four-and-two-thirds innings of three-run relief, beating the Cobras' Tsai Shih-chin, who was pulled after allowing all six of the Elephants hitters to reach base.
The Brother hitters pounded out four hits and two walks against Tsai to hand the pitcher his first setback of the year.
Lin "Wild Hog" Hong-yuan had two home runs in the game, including a monster grand slam off Elephants starter Yeh Ding-ren in the top of the fourth.
That, however, was the lone highlight for the hapless Cobras as they dropped two in a row for the second time this season.
Shohei Ohtani and his wife arrived in South Korea with his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates yesterday ahead of their season-opening games with the San Diego Padres next week. Ohtani, wearing a black training suit and a cap backwards, was the first Dodgers player who showed up at the arrival gate of Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. His wife, Mamiko Tanaka, walked several steps behind him. As a crowd of fans, many wearing Dodgers jerseys, shouted his name and cheered slogans, Ohtani briefly waved his hand, but did not say anything before he entered a limousine bus with his wife. Fans held placards
Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying yesterday advanced to the quarter-finals at the All England Open, beating Kim Ga-eun of South Korea 21-17, 21-15. With the win, Tai earned a semi-final against China’s He Bingjiao, who beat Michelle Li of Canada 21-9, 21-9. Defending champion An Se-young defeated India’s P.V. Sindhu 21-19, 21-11. An on Wednesday cruised into the second round, unlike last year’s men’s winner, Li Shifeng, who suffered a shock defeat. South Korea’s An, the world No. 1, overcame Taiwan’s Hsu Wen-chi 21-17, 21-16 to set up the match against Sindhu. In other women’s singles matches, Taiwan’s Sung Shuo-yun lost 21-18, 24-22 against Carolina Marin of
EYEING TOP SPOT: A victory in today’s final against Storm Hunter and Katerina Siniakova would return 38-year-old Hsieh Su-wei to the world No. 1 ranking Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens on Thursday secured a spot in the women’s doubles finals at the BNP Paribas Open after dispatching Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) at Indian Wells. Hsieh and her Belgian partner Mertens, who won the Australian Open in late January, coasted through the first set after breaking their opponents’ serve twice, but found the going tougher in the second. Both pairs could only muster one break point over 12 games, neither of which were converted, leaving the set to be decided by a tiebreaker. Hsieh and Mertens took a 6-3 lead,
DOUBLES PAYBACK: Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Martens avenged their defeat in the quarters at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open against Demi Schuurs and Luisa Stefani Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei on Wednesday advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California. Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium dispatched Demi Schuurs and Luisa Stefani 6-1, 6-4 to set up a clash against Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez for a spot in the final of the WTA 1000 tournament. Hsieh and Martens made a blistering start to their rematch after they lost to Schuurs and Stefani in the quarter-finals at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open last month, winning three games without reply at the start of the first set