Chen Chin-fong’s walk-off home run, his first of the season, broke a two-all deadlock two outs into the bottom of the 10th inning to lift the Lamigo Monkeys past the top-ranked Uni-President Lions 4-2 at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium last night.
It was the second straight -extra-innings win that the Monkeys pulled off against the defending champs following Friday night’s 4-3 thriller over 10 frames to help reduce the Lions’ lead over the second-place Primates to a lone game in the standings.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting for so long,” Chen said to a crowd of about 2,000 after the game as he received the game MVP honor from the league official.
Chen made sure the overdue homer translated directly into a win for the home team as they looked to make up some ground on the Cats.
The Monkeys jumped to a quick 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second against Lions starter Yuya Kamada on back-to-back RBI singles by Shih Chih-wei and Tseng Hao-jui.
The lead seemed more than ample for Monkeys starter Matt DeSalvo, who took a no-hitter into the seventh until Pan Wu---hsiung lined a single up the middle to lead off the inning and set up Kao Guo-ching’s game-tying two-run blast.
Each bullpen held its ground over the next two innings to force the contest into extra innings until Chen’s monstrous swing promptly ended the game a tad short of the four-hour mark.
Closer Hsu Ming-jeh picked up his second straight win in as many nights for getting the final Lion batter out in the 10th to improve to 2-0 for the year, while the loss went to his counterpart Wang Jing-ming, who served up Chen’s game-winner over 1-2/3 innings of relief duty.
Elephants 13, Bulls 1
The Brother Elephants avenged a tough loss the night before by erupting for 13 hits to humble the Sinon Bulls at the Tianmu Baseball Stadium in Taipei last night.
Starter Lin Yu-ching had his signature split-finger fastball working to near-perfection as he allowed a lone run on seven hits, while fanning 11 and walking four to pick up the complete-game victory.
The rookie standout, who opened the season for the men in the golden uniforms, had not won since opening day despite recording three consecutive quality starts over the same span.
Offensively for the Elephants, Wang Sheng-wei and Chen -Jiang-ho’s combined 4-for-8 hitting drove in seven of their team’s runs.
Kylian Mbappe struck from the penalty spot as Real Madrid beat a dogged CA Osasuna 1-0 on Tuesday to make a winning start in Spanish La Liga under new coach Xabi Alonso. The France striker, last season’s European Golden Shoe winner, scored early in the second half, after he was fouled in the area by Osasuna defender Juan Cruz. It was enough to seal the points in Alonso’s first game in charge at the Santiago Bernabeu, with Madrid now unbeaten in their opening fixture of a league campaign since 2008. “You can see that Kylian wants to do even more
Kevin de Bruyne is to lead SSC Napoli’s Serie A title defense today when he makes his full debut at promoted US Sassuolo, but the champions head into the new season rocked by a long-term injury to star striker Romelu Lukaku. De Bruyne was, alongside aging icon Luka Modric, the big new name to arrive in Italy this summer and fans were hoping his linkup with Belgium teammate Lukaku would push Napoli to success both at home and in their return to the UEFA Champions League. The 34-year-old has suffered from hamstring injuries which caused him to miss significant chunks of the
‘CATASTROPHE’: Despite losing several key forwards in the summer transfer window, Bayern were up 3-0 in the first half before Harry Kane scored a hat-trick in the second Harry Kane hit a hat-trick, Michael Olise a double and newcomer Luis Diaz also scored as Bayern Munich made a “statement” against RB Leipzig 6-0 at home in the Bundesliga season opener on Friday. Bayern’s big-money arrivals, all brought in from the Premier League across the past three seasons, were dominant as the Bavarians begun their title defense in style. Olise scored twice in the first half, either side of a Diaz strike. Not to be outdone, Kane scored three goals in the second half — with two assists coming from Diaz, to bring Bayern’s total to 6-0. Kane told the Bundesliga
FIGHTBACK: Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Jiang Xinyu of China rallied from a set down to advance to the final of the women’s doubles at the Tennis in the Land Russian second seed Ekaterina Alexandrova on Thursday beat defending champion Linda Noskova 7-6 (7/5), 4-6, 6-2 at the Monterrey Open to secure her place in the semi-finals of the US Open tune-up event. Alexandrova, 14th in the world rankings, started the decider brightly after two tightly contested sets and while Czech Noskova fought back to level at 2-2, the Russian regained control to seal the victory in just over two hours at the WTA 500 event. “I’m really glad that I could make it through, even in three sets, because it was difficult today — she served so well, she hit so
RSS