Cashing in on mistakes made by the EDA Rhinos, the Uni-President Lions made it two wins in a row by taking Game 2 of the Taiwan Series 4-2 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium last night to claim a 2-0 lead in the annual Fall Classic.
Tsai Ming-chin’s wild pitch with runners on second and third brought home the go-ahead run that broke a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the eighth inning. He would walk home the insurance run for the Lions on the ensuing at-bat that put the game away.
“There’s no doubt that [the wild pitch by Tsai] really hurt us, but our inability to bring home the runs when we had the chance was the real killer,” Rhinos coach Tseng Chih-cheng said, referring to his troops’ two-for-10 hitting with runners in scoring position.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
It was the second straight game that the Rhinos outhit the Lions, but still lost.
Starter Luo Ching-lung of the Lions pitched into and out of trouble over the first two frames when he escaped a one-out-with-two-on jam in the first inning and a one-out-with-one-on jam in the second to strand all three runners. That bought him just enough time to settle in and pitch two-run ball through the seventh in a performance worthy of the games Most Valuable Player honor.
“I knew if I kept the game close our offense would eventually come around and win it for us,” Luo said after the game.
Even though he was not credited with the win, with the honor going to his successor Fu Yu-kang, his joy was equally as sweet as the Lions put themselves are two victories shy of the title.
On the defensive side the Lions also had the upper hand, with Chen Yung-chi coming up with several spectacular plays to rob the potent Rhinos offense of at least two base hits.
Deng Chih-wei’s sharp single to left that scored the runner from second put the Cats on the board, before the visitors answered with a pair of runs of their own in the top of the fourth on two extra-base hits and a single off Luo.
The 2-1 lead for the Rhinos lasted only two innings, with Kao “Green Tank” Guo-ching connecting on a two-out double off Rhinos starter Nick Green that evened the score in the bottom of the sixth to set the stage for the game-deciding eighth.
“We kept our patience against their pitchers at the plate to put us in the best position to win and that’s what happened,” Lions coach Chen Lien-hung said after the game.
His Cats really made the most of their home-field advantage by taking the Rhino pitchers deep into the count to wear them down.
With only a handful of teams managing to overcome a 0-2 deficit in the best-of-seven series in history, the Rhinos must put the losses behind them and play their own game in what is a must-win Game 3, as another loss would virtually put the title out of sight.
TO THE TOP: After securing the international title on Saturday, Team Taiwan were to face Las Vegas to potentially win their 18th Little League World Series championship A team from Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School won the Little League Baseball World Series’ international title on Saturday by defeating Aruba 1-0 in the annual baseball tournament held in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The Taiwan team, competing under the name Chinese Taipei, were after press time last night to face a team from Las Vegas, Nevada, which beat a team from Fairfield, Connecticut, in the US championship 8-2. Taiwan are seeking to win their first Little League Baseball World Series title since 1996. “Really haven’t taken a moment to data dump right now on Taiwan,” Nevada manager T.J. Fescher said. “They’re a
Marc Marquez continued his winning streak as he cruised to victory in the Hungarian GP sprint by two seconds on Saturday night to pad his championship lead. It was a seventh straight Sprint victory for the Spaniard, who has also won the last six longer Sunday grand prix races on his factory Ducati. Fabio Di Giannantonio, an Italian with the VR46 Ducati satellite team was a distant second at Balaton Park, followed by his team-mate and compatriot Franco Morbidelli third. Marquez, a six-time world champion, started the race from pole position. “I felt someone really close on the first corner, from there I
Former European champions Celtic exited the UEFA Champions League in the qualifiers after a 3-2 penalty shoot-out defeat at Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty on Tuesday, following two goalless legs in the playoff tie. Kairat are to compete in the competition proper for the first time, while Norway’s Bodo/Glimt and Cyprus’s Pafos also secured debut appearances after coming through the playoffs. Celtic’s night ended in disappointment as they missed three penalties in the shoot-out, Daizen Maeda failing with the decisive spot-kick. The slugfest of a match went into extra-time with neither side finding the net and few overall chances, echoing the first
Russian Diana Shnaider continued her impressive winning streak in tour-level finals at the Monterrey Open on Saturday, beating compatriot Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in the WTA 500 event’s final. Shnaider had little trouble in the opening set but struggled in a topsy-turvy second, as Alexandrova clinched the set’s fifth and decisive break at 5-4 to force a decider. Third-seed Shnaider carved out an advantage early on in the third set when she broke Alexandrova in the first game and held serve to go 2-0 up, an advantage she would not relinquish. World No. 12 Shnaider is now unbeaten in her last five