NATIONAL LEAGUE
The Washington Nationals made the decision to replace starter Wang Chien-ming with reliever Ross Detwiler on Wednesday, after Wang allowed five runs in 3-1/3 innings in a loss to the Tampa Bay Rays the previous day.
Detwiler was moved back into rotation as the fifth starter, replacing Wang, while Wang will pitch out of the bullpen as a reliever until he returns to his previous form.
Photo: Hsu Cheng-yang, Taipei Times
The Taiwanese right-hander started the season on the disabled list after suffering from a spring training injury.
“Wang is very valuable to us and I feel like in his [four] starts that he has not improved his mechanics,” Washington Nationals manager Davey Johnson said.
“I still really like his arm strength. It seems like he still has not got his rhythm yet, but hopefully he will, because I’m going to need him,” he added.
Wang will be working extensively with pitching coach Steve McCatty to try and get back on form.
According to baseball experts, Wang releases the ball too quickly and his body cannot match the movements of his pitch, thus causing an imbalance in his pitches. It results in a fastball, but lacks the precision and accuracy of his trademark sinker.
Wang’s ERA rose to 6.62 after four starts by giving up 14 walks and 26 hits in only 17-2/3 innings.
In comparison, Detwiler, who substituted Wang in the fourth against the Rays and pitched 3-2/3 hitless innings, retiring 11 out of 12 hitters, posted a 3.34 ERA.
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