Nearly losing an eight-run lead in the top of the ninth, the La New Bears held on for dear life to escape with an 11-9 win over the dmedia T-Rex at the Kaohsiung County Baseball Stadium on Wednesday night to start their week with a “W.”
Heading into the final frame with a seemingly secure 11-3 lead, the Bears sent reliever Huang Chin-chih to the mound against his former team looking to close out the deal without too much trouble.
Instead, the lefty allowed the first batter he faced to reach on a single before serving up a two-run homer to Lu Yo-hua to start what ended up being a six-run ninth.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
This forced skipper Hung Yi-chung to send in his third pitcher of the inning, closer Jermaine Van Buren, to apply the tourniquet en route to their fifth victory in seven chances.
Doing the damage for the Bears with his big bat was Chen Chin-fong who drove in five of the Bears’ 11 runs on a 3-for-5 night to surpass the President Lions’ Tilson Brito for the top spot in most RBIs this season with 68 (in 61 games).
Picking up his seventh win of the year to improve to 7-3 was Bears starter Hsu Wen-hsiung, who held a potent dmedia attack to three runs on seven hits over seven solid innings before the late-game collapse nearly cost him the win.
As for the hapless T-Rex, losers in nine of their last dozen games, the late-game rally was too little too late.
ELEPHANTS 10 , LIONS 5
Kuo Yi-fong’s two-run blast sparked a four-run eighth as the red-hot Brother Elephants doubled up on the President Lions 10-5 at the Hsinchu Municipal Baseball Stadium on Wednesday to extend their non-losing streak to six games.
The Elephants jumped to a quick 3-0 lead in the top of the first on an RBI double by Chen Guan-ren and a two-run throwing error by the Lions shortstop on what would have been an inning-ending double play.
The lead would stand for the next five innings before the Elephants struck for three more runs in the seventh to make it 6-0.
Down by a half-dozen, the Lions finally got to Elephants starter Danny Core in the bottom of the seventh with five hits and a walk that chased the US righty. Core would be charged with all five of the Lions runs in the inning, which cut the once-comfortable Elephants lead to a lone run before the four-run eighth by the Elephants offense saved the day in the end.
Core was credited with his sixth victory of the year despite an awful seventh to beat fellow countryman Louis Pote of the Lions, who lasted one out into the seventh before being pulled in his fourth setback of the year.
WHALES 4, BULLS 3
The Chinatrust Whales needed a three-run blast from Tseng Jia-shien in the top of the ninth to rally past the Sinon Bulls 4-3 at the Taichung Municipal Baseball Stadium in their week-opener on Tuesday.
It was the second straight game that the third-year infielder had won for the marine creatures with his big bat late in the game; the first coming by way of a two-run homer in the Whales’ 9-5 come-from-behind win over the T-Rex in Douliou last Saturday.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB