Chen Chin-fong’s bouncer over a drawn-in third baseman scored the go-ahead run in the top of the tenth and the La New Bears went on to beat the dmedia T-Rex 6-5 at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tienmu on Saturday night for their fifth straight victory.
Game-MVP Shih Chih-wei led off the inning with a clean double off dmedia reliever Lai Jung-nan and advanced to third on a fielding error on the same play to put himself in position for the game-winner.
The win avoided what would have been an embarrassing situation for the Bears as they blew a three-run lead late in the game, the last of which came on a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the eighth to force in the tying run.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUN, TAIPEI TIMES
Chen’s RBI-groundout gave the visiting Bears an early 1-0 lead in the opening frame before the contest turned into a pitchers’ duel through the fifth between the Bears’ Andrew Loraine of the US and fellow countryman Cory Bailey for the T-Rex.
A hibernating Bears offense would finally wake up in the top of the sixth with three-runs off Bailey, highlighted by Tseng Hao-jui’s two-run double to give his club a 4-0 advantage.
The lead lasted less than an inning as the T-Rex answered with two runs of their own in the bottom of the same inning on Hsieh “the Ugly” Jia-shien’s two-run blast to half the Bears lead at 4-2.
It was Hsieh’s 100th homer in the league (not including the 75 that he hit over five seasons in the former Taiwan Major League).
Huang “Easy” Long-yi’s one-run single in the seventh promptly upped the Bears lead to three runs in a 5-2 affair before the T-Rex loaded up the bases and scored twice on a sacrifice fly and a wild pitch by Bears reliever Huang Chin-chih to fall within a run.
Jermaine Van Buren was credited with the win for his 2-2/3 innings of scoreless relief even though he walked four and blew a save opportunity in the eighth to allow the T-Rex back in the game.
Tagged with the loss was his counterpart Lai for serving up the game-winner in the tenth.
Elephants 4 Whales 1
The Brother Elephants top the Chinatrust Whales by a 4-1 margin at the Hsinchu Municipal Baseball Stadium on Saturday to sweep the two-game series.
Danny Core pitched seven brilliant innings of one-run ball with five scattered singles to pick up his fourth win of the year.
Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min and newcomer Carlos Rivera of Puerto Rico led the Elephants attack by going a combined 5-for-7 on the night.
Chen Rei-chen’s sacrifice fly followed by Chen Rei-chang’s RBI double broke a scoreless tie in the top of the fourth for the Elephants as they took a 2-0 lead over the Whales.
That was more than ample for Core as he allowed the lone Whales run in the fifth before his offense tacked on two more insurance runs in the eighth in the eventual 4-1 final.
Suffering the tough loss for the Whales was starter Du Chang-wei who allowed four runs (only two earned) on nine hits over 7-1/3 innings of work for his fifth setback of the season.
The Whales righty set a new league mark for consecutive losses with a dozen straight dating all the back to last season.
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For almost 30 minutes, Vitomir Maricic did not take a breath. Face down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible. When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes. However, even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit. “Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, told reporters, reflecting on the record-breaking day on June 14. “When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
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