Kuo Hso-wei’s RBI-single capped a three-run fifth that turned a 0-2 deficit into a 3-2 lead and the Lamigo Monkeys held on to defeat the Uni-President Lions by the same score at the Greater Kaohsiung Baseball Stadium last night.
The win not only gave the Monkeys a clean sweep for the weekend series against the first-half champs, but also extended their current win streak to five straight, maintaining their four-game lead over the second-place Elephants in the standings.
In an effort to avoid the series sweep, a very focused Lion pack drew first blood against Monkey starter Lin Jia-wei with a one in the opening frame on the strength of Kao Guo-ching’s run-scoring double. They doubled their lead three innings later when Kao hit his league-best 21st homer of the year, a solo blast to dead center in the fourth that made it 2-0.
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times
The game turned into a defensive struggle as neither offense was able to produce another against the superb pitching of Lin and the Lions bullpen, the former cruising through the seventh unharmed, and the latter combining for three innings of shutout relief.
Picking up the close win was Lin, who improved to 3-2 for the year, while the loss went to his counterpart Chen Yi-chen, who fell to 2-3 for the season.
ELEPHANTS 6, BULLS 3
The Brother Elephants avenged a bitter loss on Saturday night by doubling up on the Sinon Bulls in a 6-3 decision at the Sinjhuang Baseball Stadium in New Taipei City last night to avoid a sweep by their nemeses from Taichung in the weekend series.
Starting pitcher Cheng Chi-hong stretched his winning streak to three straight with another sound effort off the mound, pitching two-run ball into the seventh before being relieved by his bullpen.
His offense also provided the run support that had been missing in their two previous losses in which they scored four runs each, to back up the lefty ace, led by Chang Cheng-wei’s 2-for-4 hitting with a pair of RBIs.
Also starring was Wang Sheng-wei, who went a perfect 3-for-3 at the plate and scored twice to help his team pick up the much-needed victory.
Taking the loss was Sinon starter Lin Keh-chien, who gave up four early runs to put his team in a hole from which they couldn’t escape.
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