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.
Captain Vijay Kumar led the way yesterday as the Hsinchu Titans claimed the Taiwan Premier League title at the Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山), beating PCCT by 27 runs. The weather was a topic again, but not the rain that played a role in previous matches in the often-delayed tournament. Kumar, who made 80 not out from 63 deliveries, and teammate Vishwajit Kumar (58 from 43) rescued the Titans from a precarious state at the end of the power play in the T20 match. The visitors were put in to bat and struggled to 26-3 as PCCT
San Francisco Giants pitcher Teng Kai-wei impressed against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday despite an 8-1 loss in the opener of the team’s nine-game road trip. Teng, the only Taiwanese pitcher active in MLB, struck out five while allowing two hits and one walk over four innings at Chase Field to finish with a no decision, as the teams were tied 1-1 when he finished his outing. He surrendered the lone run of his outing in the bottom of the first, which began with a walk, a hit-by-pitch and two strikeouts. Diamondbacks leadoff hitter Geraldo Perdomo advanced to third on
New Zealand yesterday basked in “amazing” athletics glory after winning two gold medals in as many days at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. Geordie Beamish on Monday claimed New Zealand’s first track gold in history with a shock victory in the 3,000m steeplechase, while high jumper Hamish Kerr followed with gold on Tuesday to make it an unprecedented double success for a country much better known for rugby than its prowess in track and field. Before this week, the country had won only six golds in total at the championships. Yesterday morning New Zealand were in the giddy position of fourth on
PHOTO FINISH: The finish was closer than at the 2001 championships in Canada, when Ethiopian Gezahegne Abera edged Kenyan Simon Biwott by a single second Alphonce Felix Simbu yesterday snatched gold in the first photo finish at a major championship marathon, edging out German Amanal Petros in a dramatic race to the line to give Tanzania its maiden world title. The photo finish showed the 42.195km race was decided by three hundredths of a second as Simbu surged past the diving Petros at the line, closer than the 0.05-second gap between the gold and silver medalists in the men’s 100m final on Sunday. Simbu and Petros were given the same time of 2 hours, 9 minutes and 48 seconds, the German taking the silver despite
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