Yang Jien-fu threw five-and-one-third scoreless innings of four-hit ball to propel the Sinon Bulls over the La New Bears in a 2-0 shutout in Taichung on Tuesday night to snap a three-game losing skid.
The former Taiwan Series MVP, who had been bothered by a series of nagging injuries all season long, seemed to have broken out of a mid-season slump by winning his third straight start to improve to a 6-10 record for the year.
Cheng Hong-dah led off the game with a standup double off Bears starter Tsai Ying-fong and scored two batters later on Chang Jien-ming's RBI groundout to third to give the home Bull a quick 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first.
Neither club would score again over the next four innings against the solid pitching of Yang and Tsai until the Bulls broke through in the sixth on Chen Chih-wei's one-run single that made it 2-0 in favor of the Bulls.
That was more than ample for Yang and his bullpen mates as they allowed just two Bears hitters to reach scoring position all night long to keep the shutout intact.
Timely hitting by the Bulls was the difference in the game as the Bears also managed match their nemeses with five hits in the game, even though none had come with runners in scoring position.
Pocketing the tough loss for the Bears was Tsai, whose solid return to the starting rotation from his usual closer's role was overshadowed by Yang's stellar performance as he fell to 1-3 for the year.
Elephants 11, Cobras 3
Scoring early and often, the Brother Elephants trounced the Macoto Cobras by an 11-3 final in a wet Hsinchu City Stadium on Tuesday evening for their third win in four games.
The Elephants jumped to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first on Chen "Golden Warrior" Chih-yuan's one-run single to left before doubling their lead in the third with Chen Rei-cheng's opposite-field single that was good for another RBI.
The Elephants would continue to challenge the Cobras pitching by striking for three more runs in the fourth, highlighted by Huang Cheng-wei's tow-run single up the middle, to take a 5-0 lead before the Cobras finally answered with three runs on homers by Kao Wei and Chen Yuan-jia in the sixth to make it 5-3.
That was as close as they got with the Elephants scoring the final six runs of the game off three different Cobras relievers, capped by Chen Huai-shan's two-run blast off Lin Hsao-kai in the eighth to win it by eight in the eventual 11-3 final.
All nine of the Elephants starters connected for at least a hit on the night, led by Huang's 2-for-4 effort with a pair of RBIs.
Fan favorite Peng "Chia Chia" Cheng-min also belted a monstrous homer to right in the bottom of the fifth for his team-best 18th long ball of the season.
Joey Dawley was credited with his eighth win of the year for holding a potent Cobras lineup to just three runs on four this in six-and-two-thirds innings of work.
He struck out five and walked only one to up his league-high strikeout total to 126, nine more than fellow US lefty Gary Rath of the Bears.
Suffering the loss on behalf of the Cobras was newcomer Carlos Castillo of the US, whose Taiwan debut was less than impressive as the former major leaguer allowed six runs on 10 hits over five bumpy innings in a losing cause.
Taiwan’s men’s table tennis team won bronze on Saturday at this year’s International Table Tennis Federation World Team Table Tennis Championships in London, matching the country’s best-ever finish at the regular tournament. Consisting of Lin Yun-ju, Taiwan’s top-ranked player at world No. 7, Feng Yi-hsin, Kuo Guan-hong, Hong Jing-kai and Hsu Hsien-chia, the team won bronze after losing 0-3 to Japan in the semifinals. In the opening match, 24-year-old Lin played the first game against world No. 3 Tomokazu Harimoto 11-5, but ultimately lost the next three closely contested games 9-11, 10-12 and 10-12. Feng then faced world No. 8 Sora Matsushima in
Lin Yun-ju on Thursday handed Taiwan two key victories as they advanced to the semi-finals of the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals in London. The Taiwan men’s table tennis team beat Sweden 3-2 in five singles matches. The 24-year-old Lin, Taiwan’s top-ranked player at world No. 7 and nicknamed the “Silent Assassin,” opened the tie by defeating world No. 2 Truls Moregard 3-0 (11-8, 11-9, 13-11) before clinching the deciding fifth match with a 3-0 (11-8, 11-9, 11-5) win over Anton Kallberg to hand his team the overall victory. Kuo Guan-hong put Taiwan up 2-0 with a 3-2 (4-11, 11-8, 8-11,
Taiwanese fire dancer Yang Li-wei advanced to the final of Britain’s Got Talent this weekend after receiving a Golden Buzzer during her live semi-final performance. Yang, a member of Taiwan’s Coming True Fire Group, awed judges and audiences with a high-intensity fire performance featuring flaming umbrellas, fire swallowing and spinning metal structures balanced with her legs. Judge Simon Cowell praised Yang as a star, while guest judge KSI reacted with amazement before pressing the Golden Buzzer, sending her to the finals. The dance group wrote on social media that the Golden Buzzer was “the highest honor” on the talent show, adding: “Twenty-three years
As Super Rugby fast approaches its playoff season it finds itself racing toward a reckoning with many issues that threaten the southern hemisphere tournament. A group of stakeholders met in the New Zealand city of Christchurch late last month to address problems that are making the future of the 31-year-old competition increasingly tenuous. The discussion was made more urgent by the decision by the owners of Moana Pasifika to fold the Auckland-based club for financial reasons. That followed the closure of the Melbourne Rebels at the end of the 2024 season, likewise because of financial difficulties. Problems addressed included player retention as more
RSS