Liu Fu-hao’s tiebreaking double off Huang Chin-chih in the bottom of the eighth inning scored the go-ahead run for the Uni-President Lions as they held on to top the Lamigo Monkeys 3-2 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium last night to win Game 4 of the Taiwan Series.
It was the third straight one-run win that the Lions have picked up over their archrivals from Taoyuan, giving them a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven annual “Fall Classic,” one win away from clinching the coveted league title.
Tsai Jien-wei’s leadoff homer off -Lions starter Chen Yi-cheng put the on-the-road Monkeys ahead 1-0 in the top of the first only to see the home Lions return the favor with Chen Yung-chi’s equalizer, a towering shot to strait-away center field off Monkeys starter Shane Youman to tie the game at1-1.
The opportunistic Monkeys grabbed their second lead of the game at 2-1 when the Lions third baseman Chang “OEO” Tai-shan mishandled a line drive hit right at him by Huang Hao-ran.
What could have been an inning-ending double-play ended up giving the Monkeys an extra out, which led to ChenYen-fong’s RBI groundout in the top of the fourth.
The score remained at 2-1 until Kao Chih-kang tripled off Youman and scored on a passed ball against Monkeys catcher Chen Yen-fong in the sixth to tie the game at 2-2, setting the stage for Liu’s late-game heroics.
Lions reliever Wang Jing-ming was credited with the win for striking out the side in a perfect eighth, before Lin Yueh-ping retired the final three Monkeys batters to record the save.
It was Wang’s second win of the series following his Game 2 victory on Sunday.
Taking the loss was Huang, who pitched the Monkeys out of a jam in the seventh, but failed to do the same in the eighth in a losing effort.
The Greek basketball league finals between Panathinaikos and Olympiakos were suspended by the government on Monday following on-court scuffles involving rival security teams. The best-of-five series is at 1-1. The third game, scheduled for today, has been postponed. The owners of both clubs were summoned to meet with the country’s sports minister. They “will be asked to provide explicit guarantees that this situation will be brought to an end. If not, this year’s championship will be definitively canceled,” government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said. “There can be no tolerance for such pathological phenomena of violence and delinquency.” In online posts, the owners of Panathinaikos and
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