Huang “Easy” Long-yi hit his record-setting 10th career leadoff home run and Mike Johnson tossed six-and-a-third innings of one-run ball to pace the La New Bears past the self-destructing Chinatrust Whales in a 5-2 win in Hsinchu on Sunday.
Not only was the win the Bears’ eighth in their last 10 games, but it also helped them swept the two-game series against the marine creatures to keep pace with the top-ranked President Lions in the latest standings.
Huang’s solo blast off Whales starter Nee Fu-deh on the second pitch of the game quickly put the visiting Bears ahead 1-0 before Tseng Hao-jui drove in two more runs following a throwing error on what would have been an inning-ending out that made it 3-0 in favor of the Bears in the top of the first.
Kuo Dai-yong’s opposite-field single after Kang Tseh-wei’s double in the bottom of the third would score Kang from second to cut the Bears lead to 3-1.
That was all the runs that either team would produce with Nee retiring 12 of the next 13 Bears hitters he faced and Johnson holding his ground in a scoreless fourth and fifth before the Bears capitalized on the third of five Whales errors in the game to plate another run in the sixth.
After the Bears upped their lead to 5-1 in the seventh courtesy of the Whales’ fifth error of the game, the sloppy Whales finally came through with ninth-inning run to save face by making the final score more respectable.
The sloppy play by the Whales defense ultimately proved too much for the offense to overcome as all but one of the five Bears runs in the game was earned.
Improving to a league-best 4-0 for the season was Johnson who allowed a run on five hits while fanning six and walking four to beat a winless Nee (0-3), who pitched well enough for the win with only one allowed run on five hits in 5-1/3 innings of work.
Lions 5, T-Rex 3
Kuo Dai-chi’s pinch-hit, two-run home run capped a four-run sixth that broke a 1-1 tie for the President Lions as they went on to top the dmedia T-Rex 5-3 in Tainan on Sunday for their third straight win of the week.
Tilson Brito and Chen Lien-hong also homered during the decisive sixth with back-to-back solo blasts off T-Rex starter Chen Jien-fu to make a winner out of Lions setup man Shen Bo-chang who entered during the sixth in relief of starter Gregory Wiltshire and pitched 1-1/3 innings of scoreless relief to register his first win of the season.
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
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite