Scoring nine runs in each game, the Brother Elephants defeated the Uni-President Lions 9-3 and 9-7 in their day-night double-header at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tianmu yesterday to take the three-game weekend series against the defending champions.
Back-to-back errors by the Lions defense, coupled with some crafty hitting on the part of the Elephants, led to a five-run fourth inning that broke a 3-3 tie in the opening game.
That was more than ample for Elephants starter Jim Magrane, who overcame a shaky first three innings in which he allowed a pair of solo homers to the Lions’ Kuo Dai-chi, cruising through to the eighth without giving up another run for his fourth win of the year.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Offensively for the victorious Elephants, Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min’s three-for-five hitting with two RBIs on a pair of doubles led an attack that pounded out a dozen hits off four different Lions hurlers to humble the defending champs.
The Elephants hitters would score five runs in an inning for the second time in the night game as they came up big in a five-run seventh that turned a 3-5 deficit into a 8-5 lead en route to a 9-7 win.
Homers by “Chia Chia” and Chen Guan-ren played a big part in this one, as the former’s two-run shot sparked the five-run seventh, while the latter’s two-run blast in the third got the team on the board.
The batting tandem for the Elephants would end up driving in seven of their team’s nine runs in a contest that sent the Lions to a record-setting ninth straight loss.
“I guess I am seeing the ball a lot better as of late,” a smiling “Chia Chia” said after the game.
His five RBIs on the day would put him three short of the league best 37, held by Lin Chih-sheng of the Bears.
Picking up the win for the Elephants was starter Carlos Castillo who improved to 4-1 for the year with eight decent innings of work, allowing five runs on nine hits.
Trailing by four heading into the top of the ninth, the Lions actually plated a pair of runs off Ryan Cullen to rattle the Elephants closer, but Cullen would calmly retire the final three hitters he faced to keep the win intact.
Bears 8, Bulls 2
Bulls 2, Bears 0
The league-leading Sinon Bulls bounced back nicely from an 8-2 loss in the opening game of their double-header against the La New Bears by winning the nightcap with a 2-0 shutout to earn a 1-1 split in their two-game set at the Douliou County Baseball Stadium yesterday.
Lin Yi-chuan’s solo blast off Bears starter Ken Ray in the bottom of the second was the difference on the night as the Bulls kept the potent Bears’ offense off the board, with starter Yang Jien-fu tossing six-and-two-third scoreless innings of four-hit ball, before his bullpen came in to keep the shutout intact.
The opening game was all-Bears from the go as they erupted for six quick runs off Sinon starter Lin Chi-wei over the first three frames to spot game-winner Chris Mason a 6-2 lead.
Mason is now 7-2 for the season, while Lin fell to 6-2 with the loss.
The Lions face the Elephants in Tianmu again today at 5:05pm, while the Bears take on the Bulls in Taichung at the same time.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier