Hsu Yu-wei pitched seven innings of one-run ball and Jiang Chih-tsong went 3-for-4 effort to lead the La New Bears past the President Lions in a 3-1 win in Sinjhuang on Thursday night.
The emerging fourth-year lefty who spent a good part of last season rehabbing a shoulder injury has developed into a formidable force in the La New rotation to make up for the absence of Wu Si-yo, who left the team after two great seasons with the Bears to play in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball League.
Hsu has won eight in a row with a repertoire of pitches -- including a blazing fastball of more than 140kph and a nasty slider that breaks hard and late -- to improve his record to 9-2 for the season.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
"The key to his success this year is that pin-point control; he is also around the plate, which makes the hitters work extra hard," a very pleased La New manager Hong Yi-chung said after the game.
Offensively for the defending champs, Jiang took the lead with a three-hit game against Lions staff ace Pete Munro, who had won seven straight heading into the game after tossing 22 scoreless innings over a three-game stretch.
The showdown between the top two clubs in the league saw the Bears drawing first blood against Munro in the top of the second when Lin Jin-ping lined a pitch to the left-center gap for a two-run double that put the Bears ahead 2-0.
They would tack on another run an inning later with Jiang's timely single that scored the runner from second with two outs to make it 3-0.
That was more than plenty of run support for Hsu as he retired the first 14 Lions batters he faced before giving up a single in the fifth to lose the no-hitter bid. He would pitch two-hit ball through the seventh before allowing a pair of singles in the eighth. Hsu was relieved by his bullpen, which kept the damage to only one run en route to a 3-1 victory.
Pocketing the tough loss for the Lions despite turning in another quality start was Munro, who made a couple of mistakes early in the game and paid dearly for them as his offense simply could not come up with its usual run production to bail out the US right-hander.
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
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB