The Uni-President Lions tied a club record for most runs scored in an inning with nine off two different Brother Elephants pitchers in the sixth to run away with a 14-10 win at the Hsinchu Municipal Baseball Stadium on Tuesday evening.
Rico Washington led a Lions attack that rang up 19 hits against generous Elephants pitching with five hits in the game, tying the league mark for most hits in a single contest. Even though the American shortstop only managed to dive in a run, it was a tremendous effort worthy of the game-MVP honor.
Also starring for the road cats were Yang Song-hsuen, Chen Lien-hong and Yang Dong-yi, who belted three hits apiece with six combined RBIs to account for the bulk of their team’s run production.
The Lions found themselves trailing 0-1 in the second on Elephants slugger Chen Chih-pong’s RBI single to left, but quickly regained their composure with a three-run third, highlighted by Kao Guo-ching’s two-run blast off Elephants starter Danny Core to take a 3-1 lead.
After a quiet fourth and fifth, the Lions offense would strike again with a big sixth that promptly widened their lead to 12-1.
Even though the Elephants scored the next six runs to pull within five of the defending champs, the game was over long before the final out was recorded.
Mid-inning relief made the difference in the game as the Elephants bullpen failed to keep the game close after Core was pulled at the start of the fifth as Yeh Yong-jeh and Lee Hao-ren opened the floodgates with nine allowed runs in the decisive sixth.
Picking up his first win of the year was Lions reliever Lin Cheng-fong, who entered in relief of starter Valerio de los Santos of the Dominican Republic in the fourth with two scoreless innings of one-hit ball before turning the game to fellow pitcher Pan Jung-rong.
Suffering the loss was Elephants starter Core, who allowed three runs on five hits over four innings but fell victim to a total collapse by the struggling Elephants bullpen.
Shohei Ohtani on Wednesday homered for the fifth consecutive game, tying a Los Angeles Dodgers franchise record. Yankees star Aaron Judge was the last player to homer in five consecutive games, accomplishing that feat last year. Ohtani, who leads the National League with 37 home runs, homered in the first inning off Minnesota Twins starter Chris Paddack. He hit a slow curveball 134m to center. He carried the bat midway down the first-base line and then did a bat flip. He did not hit a home run later in the game with the Dodgers trailing, but his presence was felt. With two outs
Ben O’Connor won Thursday’s monster Alpine stage to the ski resort of Courchevel as three-time Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar responded to attacks from Jonas Vingegaard and dropped him to cement his grip on the yellow jersey. With just three stages left before the race ends in Paris, Pogacar looks poised to retain his title, with a comfortable lead of more than 4 minutes over Vingegaard, a two-time champion. Stage 18 featured three extremely difficult ascents, including the 26.4km climb of the Col de La Loze to the finish. At 2,304m, La Loze is the highest summit in this year’s Tour. Two
Taiwan’s world No. 6 shuttler Chou Tien-chen yesterday defeated India’s H.S. Prannoy to advance to the quarter-finals of the China Open in Changzhou. It was former world No. 2 Chou’s eighth win in 14 matches against Prannoy, who had earlier this week lamented the age divide between him and up-and-comers, although he is only two years younger than 35-year-old Chou. The Taiwanese, who is seeded sixth at the tournament, rebounded from a close 21-18 loss in game 1 on Court 2 at the Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium. He bounced back to take the next games 21-15, 21-8 and set up a tough quarter-final
US top seed Taylor Fritz dropped an early yesterday morning marathon to Alejandro Davidovich-Fokina of Spain, while the UK’s Emma Raducanu and Canada’s Leylah Fernandez reached the semi-finals of the ATP and WTA DC Open. World number four Fritz, two points from victory in the ninth game, dropped the last five games in falling to the 26th-ranked Spaniard 7-6 (7/3), 3-6, 7-5 after three hours and five minutes in a match ending just before 2am. Davidovich-Fokina advanced to the semi-final against US fourth seed Ben Shelton, who beat sixth-seeded hometown hero Frances Tiafoe 7-6 (7/2), 6-4. Fritz, who had 20 aces and six