Chen Guan-ren connected for four hits and Danny Core pitched six strong innings of two-run ball as the Brother Elephants stunned the La New Bears with an 8-2 victory at the Kaohsiung County Baseball Stadium on Tuesday to start the final week of regular-season play with a bang.
It was the sixth time this season in which the Brother slugger had gotten four hits in a game, giving him a total of 136 to lead the league.
“I guess the playoff-like ambiance has really pushed our game up a notch,” Chen said after the game, referring to the fact that they are to take on the Bears in the upcoming first-round postseason action.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
Keeping the previously red-hot Bears lineup in check was Core, who worked six quick innings with two runs given up on six hits to earn his ninth victory of the year. His ability to hold the Bears offense to under four runs a game will be essential to their success in this postseason, as skipper Wang Guang-hui has just two other reliable starters — Kobayashi Ryokan and Liao Yu-cheng — to turn to on the Brother rotation.
Taking the fall in a rare home loss for the Bears was Hsu Wen-hsiung. The Bears’ 10-game winner fell victim to a costly error by shortstop Lin Chih-sheng that led to three unearned runs in the top of the first.
BULLS 1, LIONS 0
Tseng Hua-wei’s clutch single with two outs in the bottom of the eighth made all the difference as the Sinon Bulls blanked the Uni-President Lions 1-0 in Douliou on Tuesday to end a six-game losing skid.
The speedy outfielder, who is normally known for his flashy glove work on defense, untied a scoreless gridlock with one big swing to score the runner on second that gave the Bulls a rare 1-0 lead late in the game.
That was enough to make a winner out of Sinon rookie starter Lin Chi-wei, who went the distance on 138 pitches in a five-hit gem to pick up his first career complete-game shutout win.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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