Back-to-back homers by Kuo Dai-yong led to seven unanswered runs for the Chinatrust Whales as they trounced the La New Bears 7-1 at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Tuesday to kick off the week with a splash.
It was the first time that the speedy outfielder had gone deep more than once in a game in his seven-year venture with the Whales, adding some power to his steadily improving hitting over the years.
The win also boosted the Whales’ win streak to four straight while handing the slumping Bears their fifth defeat in a row as the two teams seemed to be heading in opposite directions midway through the first half of the season.
Unlike the final score would suggest, the Bears actually struck first in the top of the third when Huang Long-yi led off the inning with a single off Whales starter Steve Watkins, stole second and scored on Gary Burnham’s RBI-groundout two batters later.
That was all the runs that the struggling Bears would plate as Watkins regrouped in a hurry and pitched through the seventh with minimal trouble en route to his third win of the season.
As for the marine creatures, they finally got to Bears starter Andrew Loraine after three scoreless innings with a pair of singles in the fourth to tie the game up at 1-all before tacking on two more in the sixth and ultimately blowing it wide open in a four-run seventh. Leading the Whales attack with their bats were Kuo and Lee Yi-wei whose combined 5-for-7 hitting with five RBIs accounted for the bulk of their team’s total offense.
Picking up the loss for the Bears was Loraine who allowed three runs on six hits over as many innings in his fourth straight quality start in seven chances to fall to a 2-3 mark for the year.
T-REX 6, LIONS 10
The President Lions outslugged the dmedia T-Rex in a 10-6 final at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium on Tuesday night to extend their winning-streak to five straight.
In a game they never trailed, the home Lions took an early 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first on a sacrifice-fly by Liu Fu-hao and an RBI-single by red-hot hitting Kao guo-ching before erupting for six more runs in the fourth to lead it 8-0.
Eleven batters made their way to the plate for the Lions as they racked up six singles and a double on top of a pair of walks to chase two dmedia pitchers.
The T-Rex offense finally broke through in the top of the fifth with a run on Chen Keh-fan’s RBI-single, only to see the Lions answered with their ninth run of the game in the bottom of the same inning in a 9-1 contest.
Trailing by eight runs, dmedia would rally for five runs from the sixth to the eighth to make a game of it. But that was as close as they got with the Lions bullpen coming up big late in the game to keep the margin at an acceptable four runs in the end.
Improving to 4-0 for the season with six solid innings of work was Lions starter Louis Pote who allowed three runs on six hits while striking out four and walking one to beat his counterpart Chang Hsien-chih who fell behind early with six earned runs in three-plus innings for his second loss of the year.
Shohei Ohtani and his wife arrived in South Korea with his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates yesterday ahead of their season-opening games with the San Diego Padres next week. Ohtani, wearing a black training suit and a cap backwards, was the first Dodgers player who showed up at the arrival gate of Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. His wife, Mamiko Tanaka, walked several steps behind him. As a crowd of fans, many wearing Dodgers jerseys, shouted his name and cheered slogans, Ohtani briefly waved his hand, but did not say anything before he entered a limousine bus with his wife. Fans held placards
Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying yesterday advanced to the quarter-finals at the All England Open, beating Kim Ga-eun of South Korea 21-17, 21-15. With the win, Tai earned a semi-final against China’s He Bingjiao, who beat Michelle Li of Canada 21-9, 21-9. Defending champion An Se-young defeated India’s P.V. Sindhu 21-19, 21-11. An on Wednesday cruised into the second round, unlike last year’s men’s winner, Li Shifeng, who suffered a shock defeat. South Korea’s An, the world No. 1, overcame Taiwan’s Hsu Wen-chi 21-17, 21-16 to set up the match against Sindhu. In other women’s singles matches, Taiwan’s Sung Shuo-yun lost 21-18, 24-22 against Carolina Marin of
EYEING TOP SPOT: A victory in today’s final against Storm Hunter and Katerina Siniakova would return 38-year-old Hsieh Su-wei to the world No. 1 ranking Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens on Thursday secured a spot in the women’s doubles finals at the BNP Paribas Open after dispatching Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) at Indian Wells. Hsieh and her Belgian partner Mertens, who won the Australian Open in late January, coasted through the first set after breaking their opponents’ serve twice, but found the going tougher in the second. Both pairs could only muster one break point over 12 games, neither of which were converted, leaving the set to be decided by a tiebreaker. Hsieh and Mertens took a 6-3 lead,
DOUBLES PAYBACK: Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Martens avenged their defeat in the quarters at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open against Demi Schuurs and Luisa Stefani Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei on Wednesday advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California. Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium dispatched Demi Schuurs and Luisa Stefani 6-1, 6-4 to set up a clash against Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez for a spot in the final of the WTA 1000 tournament. Hsieh and Martens made a blistering start to their rematch after they lost to Schuurs and Stefani in the quarter-finals at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open last month, winning three games without reply at the start of the first set