Kuo Yen-wen drove in three runs with a towering blast to right in the third inning and Matt DeSalvo tossed seven innings of one-run ball as the Lamigo Monkeys easily handled the Sinon Bulls 6-1 at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium last night to sweep the weekend series.
It was the second straight game that the Monkeys infielder had knocked in three or more runs and the third in the past four, as Kuo continued his red-hot hitting to lead the Primates past their opponents for their fourth straight win.
Holding the Sinon hitters to a lone run on five hits over seven frames was the efficient DeSalvo, who needed only 89 pitches to turn in his sixth quality start in seven chances to give the American righty a 5-3 record for the year.
Photo: Liao Yau-tung, Taipei Times
The showdown between the league’s strikeout leader (DeSalvo) and the top pick from last June’s amateur draft, the Bulls’ Lin Chen-hua, was all Monkeys after a scoreless first and second, with the visitors jumping all over Lin in a four-run third, before tacking on a pair of insurance runs in the sixth to put the game away long before the final out.
Unlike their previous two contests in which the Bulls surrendered 17 hits apiece, last night’s match saw the pitching staff allow only a half-dozen hits to the Monkeys, but that did not stop them from plating six in a convincing rout.
Lin left with two outs in the sixth to pick up his fifth defeat of the year.
Elephants 4, Lions 0
Lin “Little Chick” En-yu made the most of his first start in more than two years with five innings of one-hit ball to lift the Brother Elephants over the Uni-President Lions in a 4-0 shutout at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tianmu last night.
“I’m back,” Lin claimed with authority after the game as he received the MVP honor from a league official.
He had been sidelined by injuries since returning from a somewhat disappointing stint in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball League in 2010, having started only two games for the Elephants in the past three seasons, before beating the Lions’ Hsu Yu-wei for his first win in nearly six years.
Equaling Lin’s effort was an awesome Elephants bullpen that combined for four scoreless innings of relief to keep the shutout intact, highlighted by closer Brad Thomas’ game-ending ground-out to second with two on the bases to preserve the victory for Lin.
Best offensively for the men in the familiar golden uniforms was Chou Si-chi, who went a team-high three-for-four with a pair of RBIs to account for half of his team’s total run production.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB