The Uni-President Lions continued their recent surge with a 13-4 win over the Lamigo Monkeys at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium last night that extended their lead in the standings over the Primates to 1.5 games.
The showdown between the top two clubs in the league did not live up to its billing, as the home side dominated from the start, with a four-run second inning against Monkey starter Mike Loree on the strength of four singles and a pair of walks, while batting around the order.
The Primates got one run back in the top of the third when Huang Hao-ran led off the inning with a single off Lion starter Pan “Du Du” Wei-lung. They then scored two batters later on Kuo Yen-wen’s sacrifice fly, but the Lions piled on five runs over the next two innings that knocked off Loree in the third and Hsieh Chang-long in the fourth.
Kuo’s three-run blast at the top of the fifth off Du Du cut the deficit to five, but the Cats plated three runs of their own an inning later.
By the time the dust from all the Lions’ ball-smashing and base path-thrashing had settled, they had racked up 21 hits to claim their fourth straight win.
Picking up the win for the Lions was Du Du, who improved to 6-9 for the season with four allowed runs on eight hits in five innings. The loss was charged to Loree, who was relieved after 2-1/3 innings of play.
RHINOS 8, ELEPHANTS 0
Lin Chen-hua became the league’s first 15 game-winner last night leading the EDA Rhinos past the Brother Elephants at the Cheng Ching Lake Baseball Stadium in Greater Kaohsiung.
The sophomore — who exceeded all expectations by winning 10 games in the first half before stumbling a slump that saw him drop three straight in July — was well on top of his game yesterday, holding the Elephants to six hits in as many scoreless innings.
That gave the Rhinos’ offense plenty of opportunity to tee off against an Elephant pitching side that served up 14 hits.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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