Lin Chih-sheng's RBI-single to left capped a two-run eighth that broke a 5-5 tie for the La New Bears as they held on to beat the dmedia T-Rex 7-6 at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Friday to kick off the weekend series in high fashion.
With the score deadlocked at 5-all after a five-run sixth by the T-Rex that erased an early 5-0 lead for the Bears, the momentum was definitely swinging dmedia's way by in a brand new ball game.
But after a scoreless seventh, the Bears would string together one more offensive with Huang "Easy" Long-yi knocking in a tie-breaking run with a chopping single to left before Lin came through with a two-out single that made it 7-5 in favor of the Bears.
And fortunately for La New the lead was by two because the T-Rex would ended up scoring once more in the bottom of the ninth to make it 7-6 and actually had runners at the corners with two outs before Hsieh "the Ugly" Jia-shien grounded into second for the game-ending out.
The showdown between the two former Taiwan Major League (TML) clubs was all-Bears from the get go as they struck for three runs in the top of the second on Pan Chung-wei's three-run homer to left off Cobras starter Lin Jing-ming before tacking on a run each in the third and fifth on a run-scoring single by Pan and a solo blast by US slugger Gary Burnham to lead it 5-0.
A five-run sixth that featured six singles and saw the T-Rex sent ten men to the plate against two different Bears hurlers quickly erased a once-comfortable Bears lead and made things interesting again, before the game-deciding eighth.
Picking up a well-deserved win for the Bears to even his record at 2-2 was right-hander Lee Fong-hua who threw 2/1/3 innings of one-run relief on a pair of singles before being pulled in the ninth.
As for the T-Rex, a valiant comeback that showed they could play with any team in the league fell short by a run in the end as they failed to knock in the runners in the bottom of the ninth to force the game into extra-innings.
Elephants 13, Lions 3
Overcoming an early deficit with a dozen unanswered runs, the Brother Elephants stampeded over the President Lions in a 13-3 final in Tainan for their third win of the season Friday evening.
Chen "Golden Warrior" Chih-yuan and Peng "Chia Chia" Cheng-min regained their old form as the league's premier hitters by going a combined 5-for-9 with six RBIs to account for the bulk of the Elephants offense.
Chen Rei-chang and Huang Sheng-wei also connected for three hits apiece off a struggling Lions staff that gave up 17 total hits in a game that the Lions actually led 2-1 after three innings of play.
President starter Lin Cheng-fong cruised through the first four innings with minimal resistance before running into a world of trouble in the fifth while fellow bullpen mates Kao Jien-san and Kao Long-wei added fuel to fire by surrendering six more runs in the sixth, highlighted by Chen Chih-yuan's towering three-run shot to left, to blow the game wide open at that point.
Rookie starter Mai Jia-rei was credited with his first career victory for the Elephants with six solid inning of work. He allowed two runs on four hits to beat his counterpart Lin who realized success early, but simply could not sustain the level of play over the course of the game.
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.