Yang Jien-fu pitched seven strong innings of one-run ball and Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan drove in a pair of runs on a two-for-four night to lead the Sinon Bulls past the Chinatrust Whales in a narrow 3-2 home win in Taichung on Thursday evening.
The former ace of the Sinon staff, who had been bothered by a series of nagging injuries all season long, returned to his old form by hitting more than 140kph with his fastball and getting his nasty slider to break hard and late to keep the Whales hitters off balance.
"It's really coming around for me now; I am hitting the spots that I hadn't been hitting before and it's paying off," Yang said after the game.
The Prince collected his team-best 74th RBI of the year with a fifth-inning double that ended up being the game-winning run.
The contest began with the home Bulls taking it to Whales starter Shen Yu-jeh right away with a pair of RBI singles by Chang and Chen Chih-wei in the bottom of the first for a quick 2-0 lead.
The Bulls would up their lead by one in the fifth after three scoreless innings in a 3-0 game. The Whales finally got on the board in the sixth on Chen Yong-tseh's solo home run off Yang to make it 3-1.
Trailing by a deuce with the top of the order due up against Bulls ace closer Kuo Yong-chih in the ninth, the Whales managed to score once more on Hsu Ren-jeh's solo blast to left to make it 3-2. But that was as close as they got as Kuo quickly settled in to record the final three outs of the game to pocket his league-leading 13th save of the season.
Yang earned his fourth straight win in as many starts by scattering four hits over seven innings to improve to seven wins for the year.
Suffering the tough loss was Shen, who allowed three runs on eight hits in four-and-one-third innings of work and saw his seven-game winning streak came to a crashing end as his offense failed to give him the run support that he had been getting over the past two months.
Jonas Vingegaard on Tuesday claimed the overall Vuelta a Espana lead while Jay Vine earned the stage 10 victory for his second triumph of the race. Two-time Tour de France winner Vingegaard overhauled Torstein Traen’s lead to head the general classification by 26 seconds from the Norwegian, with Joao Almeida third and trailing the Dane by 38 seconds. Vine put in an unmatchable performance on the final climb to finish ahead of Spanish Movistar riders Pablo Castrillo and Javier Romo. “Back in red, I’m happy with it, it’s a beautiful jersey,” Vingegaard said. “I’m happy with how the day went,
RIVALRY: Carlos Alcaraz lost his previous two matches against Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, in the Australian Open quarter-finals this year and Paris Olympics final last year Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz on Tuesday dazzled at the US Open to make the semi-finals before Novak Djokovic of Serbia danced his way through to book a New York showdown with the Spaniard that would mark the latest chapter in their generational rivalry. Former champion Alcaraz produced yet another entertaining display at Flushing Meadows to dismantle 20th seed Jiri Lehecka 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 at a sunbathed Arthur Ashe Stadium, securing his place in the last four without dropping a set this year. “Sometimes I play a shot that I should not play in that moment, but it’s the way I love
Australian Alex de Minaur reached the second week of the US Open for the third year in a row with little fanfare on Saturday and said he intended to keep winning until the tournament organizers were forced to give him better billing. Despite being the eighth seed and a quarter-finalist last year at Flushing Meadows, De Minaur’s third-round match against German Daniel Altmaier was scheduled for Court 17 — the smallest of the four stadium venues in the precinct. “It is a little bit of a headscratcher for me. I’m not gonna lie,” he told reporters after progressing 6-7 (9/7), 6-3, 6-4,
The Kansas City Chiefs wrapped up a brief visit to Brazil on Friday with a season-opening loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, but despite the defeat, the team outshone their divisional rivals in the fight for the hearts and minds of Brazilian fans. In Sao Paulo for just the second-ever NFL game in the city, Chiefs players — especially quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce — were treated as major celebrities throughout their stay, turning Corinthians Arena into a scene reminiscent of the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium. Before kickoff, crowds of fans gathered around the Chiefs’ tunnel, eager to catch a
RSS