With three straight wins to close out last month, the Lamigo Monkeys have boosted their second-half record to an even 7-7 mark as of yesterday morning, good enough for No. 2 in the latest standings.
Stellar starting pitching was the main reason that the defending champs have seemingly rebounded from a dismal first half, with staff ace Mike Loree leading the way. The US righty out of Villanova University — who played in the minors with the San Francisco Giants and the Pittsburg Pirates before coming to Taiwan during the second half of last season — have come off a mid-season slump this year with four straight quality starts, the last two of which have resulted in big wins for the Primates.
“We are coming around as a team,” Loree said after pitching seven effective innings of two-run ball (one earned) against the EDA Rhinos on Tuesday, even though it netted him a no-decision with the Lamigo bullpen blowing a late-game lead in the eighth.
His continued success will play an important role in the Monkeys’ quest to advance into the post-season and defend their title.
Doing the damage at the plate for the Monkeys in their recent barrage were sluggers Tsan Chih-yao, Kuo Sho-yen and Hsieh Hsuan-ren. They picked up eight three-hit games among them to help their team pound out nearly eight runs per game during their current three-game win streak, humbling the opposing pitching in the process.
“What’s so amazing about [the Monkeys’] recent run is that they are doing it without the help of the big-name guys, which means they will be even tougher to beat when the big guns like Lin Hung-yu and Chung ‘Yo Yo Man’ Cheng-yo return,” baseball commentator Yang Ching-lung said earlier this week.
It may be too early to tell whether the Primates will remain strong for the rest of the season, but they do possess one of the most stable starting rotations, with Loree, fellow lefty Brian Burres and Tseng Jau-hao all having been there since the start of the season. Such stability in personnel will be considered a luxury come next month as teams look to improve on their plays in preparation for the post-season.
WEEKEND PREVIEW
The Monkeys will host the top-ranked Brother Elephants in a three-game set in Taoyuan this weekend, when a series sweep could give them the lead in the standings.
They will have more than the top spot to play for against an Elephants squad that took two of three from them in their last three-game showdown on the road back in the middle of last month.
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