Chen “Golden Warrior” Chih-yuan homered twice and Kobayashi Ryokan struck out a season-high nine to lead the Brother Elephants past the La New Bears 5-3 at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Saturday night to end a five-game losing skid.
It was the first time in nearly four years that the Golden Warrior had multi-homers in a game as injuries had kept him from realizing his full hitting potential since 2004. Now that he is fully recovered and more mature in terms of understanding the pitcher’s mentality, Chen could regain his once-claimed distinction as the league’s premier slugger as he kicks off the month of May with a red-hot 6-for-8 in two games.
The Elephants needed little time solving Hsu Yu-wei with a first-inning run off the La New starter courtesy of Chen Guan-ren’s RBI-single to right that scored the runner from third for a quick 1-0 advantage.
Another single by Chen Guan-ren in the third following a single and a stolen base by the Golden Warrior promptly made it 2-0 in favor of the Elephants before the Bears finally roared for three runs in the top of the sixth on a one-run double by Chen Chin-fong and a two-run blast by Pan Chung-wei to overtake the lead for the first time in a 3-2 game.
Chen Chih-yuan’s solo shot leading off the bottom of the sixth would tie the game at 3-3 before the Elephants added another run in the same inning on Chen Huai-shan’s run-scoring single to give his team their second lead of the night at 4-3.
The Golden Warrior would take the Bears deep once more leading off the bottom of the eighth with his second blast of the game to make it 5-3 before closer Yeh Yong-jeh pitched into and out of trouble by loading up the bases on three straight base hits and getting out of the jam harmlessly by retiring the final two Bears batters on a key strikeout and a lazy fly up the middle to end the game.
Picking up his second win of the season with seven solid innings of three-run ball on six hits was Kobayashi who also received great help form his hitters to produce the win.
As for the Bears, failure to come up the timely hits, especially in the bottom of the ninth proved to be the difference in the game as reliever Huang Chin-chih was tagged with the loss for allowing the Elephants to turn the game around in the decisive sixth.
T-Rex 7, Whales 1
Not squandering a four-run lead as they did on Friday, the dmedia T-Rex beached the Chinatrust Whales 7-1 at the Douliou County Baseball Stadium on Saturday to salvage a 1-1 series-split in their two-game set versus the Whales.
The T-Rex offense capitalized on a throwing error by the Whales second baseman and a wild pitch.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier