The southern teams left their marks up north with a pair of sweeps in the rain-induced day-night doubleheaders on Sunday as the Uni-President Lions topped the Sinon Bulls 5-0 and 4-1 in Sinjhuang, while the La New Bears beat the Brother Elephants 6-2 and 10-5 in Tianmu.
Mickey Callaway allowed two hits in four of the six innings he pitched in the day game for the Lions, but still managed to keep the Bulls off the board with the help of two double plays from his defense before the Lions bullpen took over with three innings of hitless relief to preserve the 5-0 shutout win for the American right-hander.
Doing the damage at the plate with two RBIs on a 3-for-4 hitting, including a solo home run off Bulls reliever Shen Fu-ren in the ninth, was slugger Liu Fu-hao, who also made a couple of defensive plays in the outfield during the game to earn the game MVP honor.
The Lions would carry their momentum into the night game with eleven hits off the Sinon pitching to produce four runs.
That was more than ample for Pan “Du Du” Wei-luen, as the Lions starter cruised through the sixth allowing just one unearned run in a four-hit gem en route, claiming his sixth win of the year.
Taking the tough loss for the Bulls was starter Shoda Itsuki, who gave up four runs on 10 hits over 6-1/3 innings, but fell victim to a lack of run support.
BEARS 6, ELEPHANTS 2 (GAME 1)
BEARS 10, ELEPHANTS 5 (GAME 2)
Sunday’s day game began from the top of the third as a continuation of Saturday night’s contest in which the Bears struck six runs against the Elephants to win it 6-2.
Chen Chin-fong’s RBI-triple off Elephants starter Tsao Chin-hui in the top of the first got things moving in the right direction for the Bears as they took a 2-0 lead heading into Sunday’s outing.
The Bears would double their run production with a four-run fourth when they batted around the order on the strength of three singles, a double, a walk, and an error by the Elephants defense to take a commanding 6-0 lead.
Even though the home Elephants would get two of the runs back on Robert Bozied’s two-run homer off Bears starter Wu Si-yo, that was as close as they got as Wu navigated through the fifth without further damage before Hsu Ming-jeh chipped in four scoreless innings to preserve the win.
The Bears doubled up on the Elephants in a 10-5 decision in night game of the doubleheader on Sunday night, sweeping the three-game series with ease.
Starter Mike Johnson shook off a three-run first in which he allowed four hits by throwing two-hit ball over the next four frames.
And the offense would respond by knocking in a pair of runs in the third to reduce the Elephants lead to a run before skidding ahead with a big four-run fourth to lead it 6-3, winning the game 10-5.
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
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