CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Makeup week continued with the CPBL managing to fit in a game between the Uni-President Lions and the Brother Elephants at the Sinjhuang Baseball Stadium in New Taipei City on Monday night, in which the Elephants prevailed 3-1 amid the recent wet weather.
Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min’s two-run home run off Lions starter Kao Jien-san in the bottom of the first was the difference in the game as the Elephants struck early and held off several Lions scoring threats to win it.
“[Kao] left the pitch too high over the plate, so I just took a good swing at it,” Peng said after the game.
His .290 batting average may be his lowest in an 11-year career, but his on-base percentage of .414 still makes him a threat to opposing pitchers.
Southpaw starter Luis Gonzalez fanned seven through the first three frames on one-run ball and seemed well on his way to his fifth win of the season when a sudden cramp in his throwing hand forced him to leave the game after the third inning.
That meant an early run to the office for reliever Guan Da-yuan, who ably filled in for Gonzalez with three scoreless innings of one-hit ball to keep the Lions bats at bay.
Even though Gonzalez’s replacement, Yeh Ding-ren, served up a pair of walks to place the tying runs on first and second with one out in the seventh, reliever Luo Guo-hua was able to bail out the Elephants by getting the next hitter to fly out and striking out the Lions’ Pan “TAKE” Wu-hsiung to end the Lions’ scoring threat.
Lee Guan-chui and Brad Thomas tossed a scoreless eighth and ninth to preserve the victory.
Uni-President had several scoring opportunities in the game with the same number of hits [eight] as the Elephants, but failed to cash in on them as they batted a dismal 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position, including seven strikeouts and two double plays.
Picking up the victory was Guan, who improved to 6-2 on the season, while the loss was charged against Kao, who dropped his second consecutive start after moving from the bullpen to the starting rotation, following several injuries to key Elephants starters.
Shohei Ohtani and his wife arrived in South Korea with his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates yesterday ahead of their season-opening games with the San Diego Padres next week. Ohtani, wearing a black training suit and a cap backwards, was the first Dodgers player who showed up at the arrival gate of Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. His wife, Mamiko Tanaka, walked several steps behind him. As a crowd of fans, many wearing Dodgers jerseys, shouted his name and cheered slogans, Ohtani briefly waved his hand, but did not say anything before he entered a limousine bus with his wife. Fans held placards
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EYEING TOP SPOT: A victory in today’s final against Storm Hunter and Katerina Siniakova would return 38-year-old Hsieh Su-wei to the world No. 1 ranking Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens on Thursday secured a spot in the women’s doubles finals at the BNP Paribas Open after dispatching Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) at Indian Wells. Hsieh and her Belgian partner Mertens, who won the Australian Open in late January, coasted through the first set after breaking their opponents’ serve twice, but found the going tougher in the second. Both pairs could only muster one break point over 12 games, neither of which were converted, leaving the set to be decided by a tiebreaker. Hsieh and Mertens took a 6-3 lead,
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