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.
ANFIELD BLUES: Kylian Mbappe arrived at Anfield on a run of 21 goals in 17 games, but he managed just three attempts in the match, none of them hitting the target Kylian Mbappe has been nearly unstoppable this season, but he hit a roadblock in their UEFA Champions League match at Anfield on Tuesday. For the second year running, the Real Madrid forward had a night to forget at Merseyside as Liverpool won 1-0. Mbappe looked a shadow of the player who has been tearing defenses apart all season. “We were lacking that threat in the final third,” said Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, without naming Mbappe individually. The FIFA World Cup winner for France rarely looked capable of finding a breakthrough against a Liverpool team who have been so defensively fragile for much of the
LOCAL SUCCESS: In the doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in straight sets Elena Rybakina on Monday punched her ticket to the WTA Finals last four with an impressive 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 victory over second seed Iga Swiatek in round-robin play in Riyadh. After cruising past Amanda Anisimova in her opener on Saturday, Rybakina claimed her second win of the week to guarantee herself top spot in the Serena Williams Group. Anisimova on Monday rallied back from a set and a break down to triumph 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in her all-American battle with seventh seed Madison Keys, who has been eliminated from the competition. “Madi was playing so well, it was quite a battle out there,”
Erling Haaland on Sunday scored twice to propel Manchester City up to second in the English Premier League with a 3-1 win over AFC Bournemouth. The Cherries started the day in second thanks to the longest unbeaten run in the English top flight, but Andoni Iraola’s side were undone by the scintillating form of the Norwegian striker, who took his tally to 13 Premier League goals in 10 games. Haaland’s relentless streak is maintaining City’s title challenge as they reduced the gap to leaders Arsenal back to six points and edged one point ahead of Liverpool, who they face at the weekend. “Important
For almost 30 minutes, Vitomir Maricic did not take a breath. Face down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible. When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes. However, even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit. “Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, told reporters, reflecting on the record-breaking day on June 14. “When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.
RSS