Makeup week continued with the dmedia T-Rex blanking the Chinatrust Whales 2-0 at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium and the Brother Elephants downing the La New Bears 7-3 at the Kaohsiung County Baseball Stadium on Friday night in an effort to get all the first-half games in.
Nathan Bland made the most of his first start in Taiwan by tossing 6-2/3 innings of shutout ball before the dmedia bullpen took over with 2-1/3 innings of hitless relief to keep the shutout intact for the American lefty.
Providing the support with his big bat for the T-Rex was Napoleon Calzado of the Dominican Republics who drove in both of his team’s runs in the game by going 2-for-3 with a sacrifice fly.
Deng Shih-yang’s standup double off Whales starter Nee Fu-deh got things moving in the right direction for the T-Rex as they opened the game with a first-inning run on Calzado’s sacrifice fly to claim a 1-0 lead before doubling it two innings later, this time on an RBI double by Calzado.
Spotted a 2-0 lead, Bland showed no signs of letting up after cruising through the sixth with minimum trouble before turning the game to fellow reliever two outs into the seventh in the eventual win.
Offensively for the marine creatures, none of the half-dozen hits they managed off the dmedia pitchers came with runners in scoring position, leaving them empty-handed on the night.
Suffering the tough loss despite pitching a sound two-run gem was Nee who allowed seven hits and struck out eight to drop his fourth game of the season.
ELEPHANTS 7, BEARS 3
Liao Yu-cheng improved to 7-1 for the year by pitching his second complete-game of the year to lead the Brother Elephants past the La New Bears 7-3 in Kaohsiung on Friday evening.
The fourth-year righty with an underhand delivery who has quietly taken over the distinction as the Elephants staff ace shook off a shaky first in which he surrendered a run on a pair of singles and a well-executed double-steal by the Bears and pitched well the rest of the way en route to his seventh victory of the year.
He also received plenty of run-support from his offense which put up seven early runs through the fourth, highlighted by Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min’s two-run double in the top of the third on a 3-RBI night to put the game away long before the final out.
With the three hits in the game, Peng surpassed the 700-hit plateau as the eighth active player in the league to accomplish the feat.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later