The President Lions finished off the week’s play in grand fashion with an 8-0 blanking of the Sinon Bulls at home in Tainan on Sunday night to sweep the two-game series.
Louis Pote mowed through the Bulls lineup with six innings of shutout ball to improve to a team-best 5-0 with the win while Kao Guo-ching and Hsu Sheng-jeh drove in two hits apiece to account for half of the Lions’ total offense.
The win not only upped the Lions’ lead over the second-place La New Bears to a season-high four games, but also made them the first team to reach the 20-win plateau this year.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUN, TAIPEI TIMES
The contest began with the hosts wasting little time getting to Sinon starter Iba Tomokazu with two runs in the opening inning on a chopping single up the middle by Kao that scored both runners.
After a scoreless second and third, the Lions struck again in the bottom of the fourth for four runs; two from a single by Hsu with the bases loaded and a couple more from a run-scoring wild pitch by Iba and an error by the Sinon shortstop, to lead it 6-0.
The Lions added another run in the fifth to make it 7-0 before three straight singles following two quick outs in the seventh plated their eighth run to conclude the scoring.
Suffering the lopsided loss for the Bulls was Iba who received no run support at all from his offense as the Japanese veteran fell to 1-3 for the year with six allowed runs (three earned) on six hits over three and two thirds innings of work.
BEARS 2, ELEPHANTS 2, 12 INNNINGS
The La New Bears and the Brother Elephants played to a 2-2 draw after 12 innings at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tienmu on Sunday.
The four hour-plus marathon saw the Bears jump to a quick 2-0 lead in the top of the second on consecutive run-scoring errors by the Elephants defense but the game soon turned into a defensive struggle after the Elephants answered with a run each during the fourth and fifth on a solo blast by Wang Jin-yong and an RBI-double by Chen Guan-ren respectively to even things up at 2-2.
That was all the runs either team could manage against the stellar pitching of the Bears’ Mike Johnson and his counterpart Liao Yu-cheng, as neither starter allowed runners beyond second bases the rest of the way before the game eventually carried into extra-innings.
Both sides had a chance to clinch a win during the late-innings with the Elephants getting the leadoff hitter on in the eighth and ninth on walks off La New relievers and the Bears threatening to score with the bases loaded and two outs in the top of the ninth.
But failure to come through with the big hit kept the game tied after 12 innings of play.
Jemimah Rodrigues on Thursday hit an unbeaten 127 as India pulled off a record chase of 339 against Australia to set up a Women’s World Cup final against South Africa. Rodrigues and skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, who hit 89, put on 167 runs for the third wicket as India won with nine balls and five wickets to spare at DY Patil Stadium, on the outskirts of Mumbai. The hosts finished on a total of 341-5 in reply to Australia’s impressive 338 and ensured there would be a new name on the 50-over trophy tomorrow. Amanjot Kaur hit the winning boundary to trigger wild celebrations
Jannik Sinner on Thursday eased past Francisco Cerundolo 7-5, 6-1 at the Paris Masters to set up a quarter-final clash with Ben Shelton, while reigning champion Alexander Zverev earned a straight-sets win over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the third round. A maiden crown in the French capital would return Sinner to No. 1 in the world rankings after current incumbent Carlos Alcaraz suffered a shock early exit at the hands of Britain’s Cameron Norrie. The Italian four-time Grand Slam champion is yet to drop a set in the tournament as he hones in on what would be a fifth title of the
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
‘BLOWN AWAY’: With 12 strikeouts and no walks, Yesavage broke the World Series record of 11 strikeouts set by the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Don Newcombe in 1949 Trey Yesavage on Wednesday night soaked in Dodger Stadium, filled with 52,175 fans about to watch him pitch in the MLB World Series, and thought back to starting his season in front of 327 spectators in the low minor leagues. A sandlot story worthy of a movie studio back lot. “Crazy world,” the wide-eyed Toronto Blue Jays pitcher said. “Hollywood couldn’t have made it this good.” Just 46 days after rocketing to his fifth level of professional baseball this season for his major league debut, Yesavage pitched one of the best games by a rookie in World Series history. He set a Fall Classic
RSS