Pan "Du Du" Wei-luen pitched five innings of no-hit ball and Kao Guo-ching drove in a pair of runs with a bases-clearing double to lead the President Lions past the La New Bears in a 3-0 shutout at Pingdong on Friday evening.
The staff ace for the Lions has won six straight after starting off the season with a 0-2 mark to lead the league in total victories. If it had not been for the stiffness in his right shoulder that forced Pan out of the game after the fifth in a no-hit bid, he probably could have gone the distance for the Lions.
That would not matter much for Lions manager Luo Guo-chang because Rob Cordemans was equally effective in a rare relief appearance by holding a potent Bears lineup to two scattered singles over four brilliant innings to keep the shutout intact.
The classic pitchers' duel saw the Lions draw first blood in the top of the second on Lui Fu-hao's RBI groundout off Bears starter Luis Martinez.
That was all the runs that either team would score until Kao's clutch double in the sixth with men on first and second that made it 3-0 in favor of the Lions before they held on for the eventual win.
Cobras 9, Whales 8
Deng Shih-yang's timely three-run homer in the bottom of the eighth rallied the Macoto Cobras from a three-run deficit before Chiou Chang-rong's two-out double scored the winning run in the tenth in a 9-8 win over the Chinatrust Whales at Sinjhuang on Friday night.
Five first-inning runs by the Cobras offense roughed up the Whales in what appeared to be an all-Macoto contest. But that was not the case as the Whales chipped away at the deficit by scoring a run in the third and the fourth before actually claiming a 7-5 lead with four runs in the fifth, highlighted by Kuo Dai-yong's two-run single off Cobras reliever Lee Ming-jin.
They scored one more run in the sixth to lead the Cobras 8-5, setting the stage for Deng's late-game heroics.
Travis Minix was credited with his third win of the season with three innings of one-hit relief to beat his counterpart Du Chang-wei, who served up Chiou's game-winner in the tenth.
The Whales actually outhit the Cobras 12-to-10 in the game, but suffered after another late-innings collapse by the struggling Whales bullpen which had blown four saves in its last six chances.
The win for the Cobras upped their lead over the second-placed Bears to two and a half games in the latest standings while the loss by the Whales set them four games behind the Cobras in fourth place.
As for the Dinos, point guard Chen Chih-chung's team-high 15 points was the lone bright spot on a night when not much went right for them.
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