Their inability to come up with the timely hits in the extra innings lead the Uni-President Lions and the Sinon Bulls to a 5-5 draw in a 12-inning marathon at the Sinjhuang Baseball Stadium in New Taipei City last night, giving the Cats a 2-0-1 finish in the three-game weekend series against the Bulls.
Both teams had the chance to take the lead in the extra innings, as the Bulls placed runners in scoring position during the 11th and the 12th, while the Lions did the same during the 10th and the 12th.
However, they would bat a combined 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position in the extra frames to end the four-plus hour marathon in a draw.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Even though the Bulls did not win the game, it was clearly a moral victory for them as they rallied from three down in the ninth inning to force the contest into extra innings.
Trailing 5-2 heading into the top of the ninth, the Bulls took the Lions’ Lin Yueh-ping head-on by slapping a pair of singles off the closer to set up Wu Tsong-jung’s sacrifice-fly to make it 5-3.
With runner on second, the next batter Su Jien-rong made Lin pay play by going deep for a two-run blast over the left-field wall to tie the game at 5-5.
ELEPHANTS 6, MONKEYS 3
The Brother Elephants doubled up the Lamigo Monkeys in a 6-3 final at the Douliou County Baseball Stadium yesterday afternoon to avoid being swept in the three-game set over the weekend.
Wang Sheng-wei led off the game with a rare triple off Lamigo starter Steve Hammond for the defending champs and scored two batters later on Chang Cheng-wei’s RBI-groundout to give the Elephants a quick 1-0 advantage.
The Elephants would increase their lead to 3-0 with a run off Hammond in the second and the third, before the potent Lamigo lineup finally got on the board in a three-run fourth, highlighted by Chen Chin-fong’s two-run homer off Elephant starter Yeh Yong-jeh to tie the game at 3-all.
The score remained at 3-all during the next two frames until the Elephant hitters went to work again on Hammond in the sixth, this time with back-to-back doubles by Chen Guan-ren and Huang Shih-hao, to spark a three-run spurt to put their team ahead for good.
Guan Da-yuan was credited with his second win of the season with 4-1/3 innings of shutout relief on three hits to beat Hammond, who surrendered five runs on nine hits over 5-1/3 innings in his second setback of the year.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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