Pan “Du Du” Wei-luen tossed seven strong innings of two-run ball, Marshall McDougall drove in a pair of runs on a solid 2-for-4 hitting, and the Uni-President Lions went on to defeat the Brother Elephants 4-2 at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang last night.
It was the best outing of the season thus far for the Lions staff ace, who didn’t have a stellar start as he did over the past seven seasons, dropping four of his first six decisions to settle with a 3-4 mark after yesterday’s win.
As for McDougall, the league’s best hitter heading into last night’s contest with an awesome .349 average, it was the 12th multi-hit game that the US slugger enjoyed in the 27 games played so far.
The Lion hitters went to work early against Brother starter Jim Magrane, with a pair of singles and a walk to load up the bases for McDougall to deliver a two-run single in the top of the opening frame that spotted Du Du a quick 2-0 lead.
The Elephants would fight back with a pair of runs in the next inning, courtesy of an RBI groundout by Wang Sheng-wei and a run-scoring single by Yu Jau-ren, to even things up in a hurry at 2-all.
The tie would last less than an inning as the Lions’ Chuang Jing-heh led off the top of the third with a single off Magrane and scored two batters on Kuo Dai-chi’s single to regain a 3-2 lead.
Uni-President kept the same 3-2 lead through the seventh, with neither offense able to produce any runs against Du Du and Magrane until Hsu fong-bin’s one-run single made it 4-2 in favor of the Lions in the top of the eighth.
Lions setup man Lin Cheng-fong then pitched a scoreless eighth despite allowing a leadoff double to Chen Guan-ren before closer Lin Yueh-ping retired the final three Elephant hitters to pick up his ninth save of the year.
Taking the tough loss was Magrane, who pitched well enough to win with only three allowed runs over six-and-two-thirds innings of work, but was simply outdone by a very sharp Du Du to fall to a 3-3 mark for the year.
The Lions play the Elephants again today at 2:05pm in Sinjhuang, while the La New Bears play the Sinon Bulls in Taichung at 2:05pm.
In other CPBL play, it was:
• La New Bears 5, Sinon Bulls 4
Shohei Ohtani and his wife arrived in South Korea with his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates yesterday ahead of their season-opening games with the San Diego Padres next week. Ohtani, wearing a black training suit and a cap backwards, was the first Dodgers player who showed up at the arrival gate of Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. His wife, Mamiko Tanaka, walked several steps behind him. As a crowd of fans, many wearing Dodgers jerseys, shouted his name and cheered slogans, Ohtani briefly waved his hand, but did not say anything before he entered a limousine bus with his wife. Fans held placards
Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying yesterday advanced to the quarter-finals at the All England Open, beating Kim Ga-eun of South Korea 21-17, 21-15. With the win, Tai earned a semi-final against China’s He Bingjiao, who beat Michelle Li of Canada 21-9, 21-9. Defending champion An Se-young defeated India’s P.V. Sindhu 21-19, 21-11. An on Wednesday cruised into the second round, unlike last year’s men’s winner, Li Shifeng, who suffered a shock defeat. South Korea’s An, the world No. 1, overcame Taiwan’s Hsu Wen-chi 21-17, 21-16 to set up the match against Sindhu. In other women’s singles matches, Taiwan’s Sung Shuo-yun lost 21-18, 24-22 against Carolina Marin of
EYEING TOP SPOT: A victory in today’s final against Storm Hunter and Katerina Siniakova would return 38-year-old Hsieh Su-wei to the world No. 1 ranking Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens on Thursday secured a spot in the women’s doubles finals at the BNP Paribas Open after dispatching Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) at Indian Wells. Hsieh and her Belgian partner Mertens, who won the Australian Open in late January, coasted through the first set after breaking their opponents’ serve twice, but found the going tougher in the second. Both pairs could only muster one break point over 12 games, neither of which were converted, leaving the set to be decided by a tiebreaker. Hsieh and Mertens took a 6-3 lead,
DOUBLES PAYBACK: Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Martens avenged their defeat in the quarters at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open against Demi Schuurs and Luisa Stefani Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei on Wednesday advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California. Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium dispatched Demi Schuurs and Luisa Stefani 6-1, 6-4 to set up a clash against Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez for a spot in the final of the WTA 1000 tournament. Hsieh and Martens made a blistering start to their rematch after they lost to Schuurs and Stefani in the quarter-finals at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open last month, winning three games without reply at the start of the first set