The regular season came crashing to an end on Sunday with the Brother Elephants’ 4-0 blanking of the post-season-bound Uni-President Lions, setting up a post-season without a playoff series.
League rules allow for a playoff series between the teams with the second and the third-best winning records for the entire season to play a best-of-five series, before the winners earn the chance to take on the top-ranked team in the annual Taiwan Series in the event that the same team wins both halves of the regular season.
However, this season the Lions won the first half and the Lamigo Monkeys won the second half outright, thus eliminating the need for a playoff series.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
“This will definitely give both teams more time to get ready,” said Brother Elephant skipper Chen Rei-chen, whose squad missed out on the second-half title by 3.5 games after owning the lead for a long period.
Chen was speaking just after finishing a press conference held earlier this week to announce the sanctions that the league had imposed on several players, who were charged with unsportsmanlike conduct in Sunday’s game in an attempt to secure the most-saves honor for Brother Elephants closer Brad Thomas.
With a 4-0 lead, the Elephants were charged with intentionally allowing two runners to reach with two outs via back-to-back walks by reliever Yeh Yong-jeh in the top of the ninth to set up a save opportunity for Thomas, who went on to pick up his 23rd save of the year to beat Lions closer Lin Yueh-ping to the honor.
Thomas had trailed Lin by a 23-22 margin in saves heading into Sunday’s game and he needed the save to win the tiebreaker for the most saves this season.
The league has since nullified the award for this season and is considering a rule change by not counting any saves picked up by a pitcher in the regular season after the post-season matchups have been determined, in an effort to prevent such an incident from occurring again.
“To be accused of fixing a game may be too severe a description for what happened on Sunday, since the players have the right to go for individual honors under the existing rules; perhaps the rules should be modified a bit to prevent something like this from happening again,” Brother Elephants pitcher Lin En-yu was quoted as saying in the Chinese-language press.
While a rule change may be the long-term solution to the age-old problem, it did not keep the league from imposing a NT$50,000 fine on Chen and Lions manager Terushi Nakashima, on top of a three-game suspension for failing to enforce positive sportsmanship.
Yeh and Lions hitter Lee Yu-rue were suspended for three games, Yeh for intentionally walking and Lee for intentionally swinging at bad pitches thrown by Yeh to prevent himself from being walked. Home plate umpire Su Chien-wen was also tagged with a three-game suspension for not enforcing positive sportsmanship, even though Su did verbally communicate the inappropriateness of the players’ actions at the time.
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
Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying yesterday advanced to the quarter-finals at the All England Open, beating Kim Ga-eun of South Korea 21-17, 21-15. With the win, Tai earned a semi-final against China’s He Bingjiao, who beat Michelle Li of Canada 21-9, 21-9. Defending champion An Se-young defeated India’s P.V. Sindhu 21-19, 21-11. An on Wednesday cruised into the second round, unlike last year’s men’s winner, Li Shifeng, who suffered a shock defeat. South Korea’s An, the world No. 1, overcame Taiwan’s Hsu Wen-chi 21-17, 21-16 to set up the match against Sindhu. In other women’s singles matches, Taiwan’s Sung Shuo-yun lost 21-18, 24-22 against Carolina Marin of
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,
DOUBLES PAYBACK: Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Martens avenged their defeat in the quarters at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open against Demi Schuurs and Luisa Stefani Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei on Wednesday advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California. Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium dispatched Demi Schuurs and Luisa Stefani 6-1, 6-4 to set up a clash against Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez for a spot in the final of the WTA 1000 tournament. Hsieh and Martens made a blistering start to their rematch after they lost to Schuurs and Stefani in the quarter-finals at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open last month, winning three games without reply at the start of the first set