The Brother Elephants made it look easy against the Uni-President Lions as they erupted for 14 runs in a 14-8 rout at the Hsinchu Municipal Baseball Stadium on Wednesday night to start the week with a splash.
Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min homered twice to champion an offense that spotted starter Lee Hao-ren an overwhelming 13-0 lead to help the rookie win his first career start.
Also starring for the men in the golden uniform was Chen Rei-chen, who connected for three hits to knock in a pair of runs on a night when six different hitters contributed with multi-hit outings.
The Lions finally got on the board in the seventh after being held to four hits by Lee through the fifth and Tsao Jung-yang in the sixth, when Kuo Dai-chi scored on an RBI single by Cheng Nai-wen off Tsao in what ended up being a five-run innings.
They tacked on three more over the final two frames, even though the outcome of the game was never in doubt.
The disappointing loss by the Lions masked what was an outstanding offensive game for outfielder Liu Fu-hao, who also went deep twice on a 3-for-4 night with four RBIs in his first career multi-homer game.
BULLS 7, BEARS 0
Ricardo Rodriguez became the first player in the league to pick up a complete-game shutout this season with a brilliant five-hitter against the La New Bears in Taichung that boosted the home Sinon Bulls to an impressive 7-0 win on Tuesday evening.
The Dominican standout, who joined the Bulls right before the All-Star break, kept a potent Bears offense off balance throughout the contest, allowing all but one of the first dozen hitters he faced and only three Bears hitters to reach scoring position.
Offensively for the Bulls, Deng Shih-yang’s perfect 5-for-5 hitting with an RBI led an attack that roughed up Bears starter Huang Hong-ren with six runs over the first four innings to deal the second-year righty his first loss of the year.
Badminton world No. 3 Anders Antonsen clinched his first Indonesia Open title yesterday after beating Taiwan’s Chou Tien-chen, while South Korea’s An Se-young won her second championship in Jakarta. The 28-year-old Dane sank world No. 7 Chou at the Indonesian capital’s Istora Senayan arena, winning 22-20, 21-14 in a 60-minute match to secure the prestigious Super 1000 event. Antonsen came out on top in a tightly contested first game before cruising to victory in the second. In a more closely fought women’s singles final, South Korean ace and world No. 1 An fought back from one game down to beat China’s
Italy crashed to a 3-0 loss away to Norway, as the four-time FIFA World Cup champions made a disastrous start to their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign on Friday, while Belgium had to settle for a draw in North Macedonia. Alexander Sorloth, Antonio Nusa and Erling Haaland all scored in the first half in pouring rain in Oslo as Norway made it a night to forget for Italy, who missed out on the past two World Cups. “I have no explanation. Our supporters don’t deserve this kind of match. We need to do some soul-searching. It’s unacceptable,” Italy captain and goalkeeper Gianluigi
‘STILL’: In front of a packed New Jersey arena attended by Donald Trump and Mike Tyson, UFC 316 delivered high drama as Merab Dvalishvili retained his title Georgia’s Merab Dvalishvili scored a second-round submission win over Sean O’Malley to retain his bantamweight title at Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 316 on Saturday, with Kayla Harrison also winning by submission in the co-main event, tapping out Juliana Pena to claim the women’s bantamweight crown. In front of a packed crowd at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, which included US President Donald Trump and retired heavyweight great Mike Tyson, Dvalishvili, a 34-year-old from the country of Georgia, won the belt in a convincing, although not aesthetically pleasing, unanimous decision. Dvalishvili (19-4) sat on top of the cage and shouted
Manchester City on Monday completed the signing of left-back Rayan Ait-Nouri from Wolverhampton Wanderers for a reported £31 million (US$41.8 million). The 24-year-old Algeria international has signed a five-year contract and will be available for the FIFA Club World Cup, which begins later this week. Ait-Nouri is expected to be just one of a trio of new City faces for that tournament with deals close to completion for AC Milan midfielder Tijjani Reijnders and Olympique Lyonnais playmaker Rayan Cherki. After missing out on a major trophy in the recently completed season for the first time since 2016-2017, City are hoping