Kuo Dai-yong's walk-off single with the bases loaded scored the game-winning run in the bottom of the 11th for the Chinatrust Whales as they edged past the Macoto Cobras in a 5-4 final in Tianmu on Saturday evening.
The veteran Whales outfielder took advantage of a wild Hsu Chu-jien, the Cobras' fourth pitcher in the game, who started off the inning with back-to-back walks before giving up a single to right to fill the bags. Kuo crushed a fastball down the middle for the game-winner.
With the nation focusing its attention on the Whales' off-field troubles, which involved at least five players in a game-fixing scandal, they managed to find a way to pull off a win with a lineup that was missing five of its regular starters to momentarily restore their fan's confidence in the game.
Carlos Villalobos' two-run homer off Cobras starter Chang Hsien-chih in the bottom of the first quickly put the Whales ahead 2-0 before they doubled the lead with Wang Hsin-min's solo blast to deep-center and Hsu Ren-jeh's one-run double to make it 4-0 in their favor.
Neither squad would score for the next four innings with Chang retiring all but one hitter during the stretch and Whales starter Nee Fu-deh throwing shutout ball on his part until the top of the seventh, when the Cobras erupted for four runs to even things up at 4-4.
The game would carry into the extra innings after a scoreless eighth and ninth with both teams' bullpens keeping the opposing hitters in check until Hsu's wildness at the death ultimately cost the Cobras the game against a patched-up Whales.
Elephants 4, Bears 6
Andrew Lorraine tossed six innings of two-run ball and Lin Chih-sheng homered and drove in three runs to lead the La New Bears in a 6-4 win over the Brother Elephants in Kaohsiung on Saturday for their fifth win in six tries.
The US southpaw newcomer matched his Taiwan debut that netted him a big win on Aug. 8 with another quality start, allowing a pair of runs on seven hits in six frames to up his record to 2-0, while Lin went two-for-three with three RBIs to account for half his team's total run production in the victory.
Peng "Chia Chia" Cheng-min's RBI single off Lorraine in the top of the first gave the visitors an early 1-0 advantage only to see the Bears answer with two runs of their own in the bottom of the same inning.
The Bears would add another run in the third on a wild pitch by reliever Chuang Wei-chuan with runners at the corners before the Elephants countered with their second run of the night to keep it a one-run game at 3-2.
Lin's monster swing that deposited the ball well into the right field stands for a two-run, opposite-field home run promptly upped the Bears lead to 5-2 before they struck again in the seventh to make it 6-2.
Trailing by four with the heart of the order due up in the top of the ninth, the Elephants would score twice, with four singles and a walk against Bears closer Tsai Ying-fong.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
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