Luther Hackman pitched six innings of three-run ball and four different hitters knocked in a pair of runs each as the Uni-President Lions roughed up the Sinon Bulls 11-3 at the Hsinchu Municipal Baseball Stadium on Friday night to begin the three-game weekend with a big win.
Every one of the first seven Lions batters reached safety against Sinon starter Ricardo Rodriguez via four singles, a pair of walks and an error to chase the Dominican right-hander before he could record an out.
Reliever Shen Fu-ren fared no better as he served up a walk and a two-run double to find his team 0-8 down after the top of the first.
PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
Even though the Bulls’ offense got two of the runs back over the first two innings to regain some confidence, the outcome was never in doubt as Hackman held his ground through the sixth on 98 pitches before the Lions bullpen took over with three innings of scoreless relief.
“It’s one of those games where if you take away the one bad inning, it isn’t so bad,” Sinon skipper Hsu Sheng-ming said after the game.
Offensively for the Cats, Cheng Nai-wen’s 3-for-5 hitting with two RBIs led an efficient lineup that plated 11 runs on as many hits to end a two-game slide.
Hackman picked up his first win of the year since rejoining the Lions this month, allowing three runs on a half-dozen hits with five strikeouts and two walks to beat Rodriguez in his fourth setback of the season.
Bears 17, Elephants 0
Tsai Jien-wei’s two-run single capped a six-run sixth to help the La New Bears blank the Brother Elephants 17-0 at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Friday night.
Aaron Rakers dodged a couple bullets with some clutch outs and great defensive play behind him to keep the shutout intact even though he allowed at least one runner to reach scoring position in each of the first four innings. He lasted through the seventh on a five-hit effort for his 11th win to tie the Bulls’ Shoda Itsuki for most wins in the league.
As for the potent Bears offense, former major leaguer Chen Chin-fong’s 2-for-3 hitting with four RBIs highlighted a night where it belted 15 hits off four different Elephants hurlers on top of a season-high 14 walks it drew to show tremendous patience at the plate.
TO THE TOP: After securing the international title on Saturday, Team Taiwan were to face Las Vegas to potentially win their 18th Little League World Series championship A team from Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School won the Little League Baseball World Series’ international title on Saturday by defeating Aruba 1-0 in the annual baseball tournament held in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The Taiwan team, competing under the name Chinese Taipei, were after press time last night to face a team from Las Vegas, Nevada, which beat a team from Fairfield, Connecticut, in the US championship 8-2. Taiwan are seeking to win their first Little League Baseball World Series title since 1996. “Really haven’t taken a moment to data dump right now on Taiwan,” Nevada manager T.J. Fescher said. “They’re a
Marc Marquez continued his winning streak as he cruised to victory in the Hungarian GP sprint by two seconds on Saturday night to pad his championship lead. It was a seventh straight Sprint victory for the Spaniard, who has also won the last six longer Sunday grand prix races on his factory Ducati. Fabio Di Giannantonio, an Italian with the VR46 Ducati satellite team was a distant second at Balaton Park, followed by his team-mate and compatriot Franco Morbidelli third. Marquez, a six-time world champion, started the race from pole position. “I felt someone really close on the first corner, from there I
Former European champions Celtic exited the UEFA Champions League in the qualifiers after a 3-2 penalty shoot-out defeat at Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty on Tuesday, following two goalless legs in the playoff tie. Kairat are to compete in the competition proper for the first time, while Norway’s Bodo/Glimt and Cyprus’s Pafos also secured debut appearances after coming through the playoffs. Celtic’s night ended in disappointment as they missed three penalties in the shoot-out, Daizen Maeda failing with the decisive spot-kick. The slugfest of a match went into extra-time with neither side finding the net and few overall chances, echoing the first
Russian Diana Shnaider continued her impressive winning streak in tour-level finals at the Monterrey Open on Saturday, beating compatriot Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in the WTA 500 event’s final. Shnaider had little trouble in the opening set but struggled in a topsy-turvy second, as Alexandrova clinched the set’s fifth and decisive break at 5-4 to force a decider. Third-seed Shnaider carved out an advantage early on in the third set when she broke Alexandrova in the first game and held serve to go 2-0 up, an advantage she would not relinquish. World No. 12 Shnaider is now unbeaten in her last five