Homers filled the sky over Tainan on Wednesday evening as the Uni-President Lions and La New Bears combined for five long balls on a night that ended in a sweet 9-3 win for the Cats.
Liu Fu-hao and Jose Castillo led the way for the Lions with a pair of two-run shots, the former breaking a 1-1 tie in the fourth, and the latter putting the Lions ahead for good in the fifth. The basing tandem of the Lions would end up with perfect three-for-three hitting, each with six combined RBIs to account for the bulk of the Lions total run production.
Also starring for the Lions was game-winner Lin Cheng-fong, who came out of the bullpen in the second inning with minimal warm-up to relieve an injured Lee Wei-hua. He held the Bears to a run on two hits through the fifth en route to his second win of the season.
PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Taking the mound for the Bears was starter Hsu Wen-hsiung, who continued to struggle against the Lions as he lasted just four-and-two-third innings, with five allowed runs on six hits and four walks to lose his fourth game in seven starts against the Cats this year.
Offensively for the Bears, Chen Chin-fong led off the top of the fourth with a solo home run to up his season total to 20, joining fellow slugger Lin Chih-sheng as the only two players with 20 or more homers in the league this season.
Newcomer Jacob Cruz also made his presence felt by connecting for two homers, both solo shots off the Lions’ Kao Jien-san and Hsu Yu-wei, to give the American three dingers in the dozen games he has played.
The win by the Lions ended a dreadful five-game slide as they looked to keep pace with the Bears.
ELEPHANTS 7, BULLS 6
Three errors by the defense in the bottom of the ninth proved costly for the Sinon Bulls as they dropped a heartbreaker to the Brother Elephants 7-6 at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Tuesday night.
The classic seesaw battle featured four different lead changes and saw the visiting Bulls skid ahead 4-0 in the top of the second on the strength of three singles and a double, before the Elephants fought back with five unanswered runs over the next three innings.
Chen Chih-wei’s RBI single in the sixth would tie the game up at 5-5, before the Bulls went ahead 6-5 in the top of the ninth from Lin Yi-chuen’s solo home run off Elephants reliever Wang Jing-li.
The Elephants, however, capitalized on the Bulls’ defensive errors that led to two unearned runs in the bottom of the ninth to give them their fourth win in a row.
ANFIELD BLUES: Kylian Mbappe arrived at Anfield on a run of 21 goals in 17 games, but he managed just three attempts in the match, none of them hitting the target Kylian Mbappe has been nearly unstoppable this season, but he hit a roadblock in their UEFA Champions League match at Anfield on Tuesday. For the second year running, the Real Madrid forward had a night to forget at Merseyside as Liverpool won 1-0. Mbappe looked a shadow of the player who has been tearing defenses apart all season. “We were lacking that threat in the final third,” said Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, without naming Mbappe individually. The FIFA World Cup winner for France rarely looked capable of finding a breakthrough against a Liverpool team who have been so defensively fragile for much of the
For almost 30 minutes, Vitomir Maricic did not take a breath. Face down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible. When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes. However, even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit. “Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, told reporters, reflecting on the record-breaking day on June 14. “When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.
TIGHT GAME: The Detroit Pistons, the NBA’s second-best team, barely outlasted the Washington Wizards, who fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss Cade Cunningham’s triple double, Daniss Jenkins’ three-pointer at the buzzer and Javonte Green’s overtime dunk lifted Detroit past Washington 137-135 on Monday, stretching the Pistons’ win streak to seven games. In an unexpected thriller, the NBA’s second-best team barely outlasted a Wizards club that fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss. “We knew how big this game was for us,” Jenkins said. “We wasn’t going to let nothing stop us from getting this W.” Cunningham made 14-of-45 shots and 16-of-18 free throws for a career-high 46 points, and added 12 rebounds, 11 assists, five steals and two
With a hat-trick on Wednesday, Victor Osimhen moved atop the UEFA Champions League scoring table, with the Nigeria striker netting all three goals in Galatasaray’s 3-0 victory over Ajax in Amsterdam. Osimhen moved to six goals this season in Europe’s elite club competition, one more than Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland. The Istanbul club signed Osimhen to a permanent deal from SSC Napoli in the summer for a record transfer fee in the Turkish League reportedly worth US$86 million. The 26-year-old striker needed less than 20 minutes to complete his first hat-trick in the competition. He headed in the opener in the
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