The Chinatrust Brother Elephants split their day-night doubleheader with the EDA Rhinos at the Cheng Ching Lake Baseball Stadium in Greater Kaohsiung yesterday, with the Elephants winning the day game 8-2 and the Rhinos returning the favor in a 5-0 shutout at home.
Cheng Kai-wen was the man of the hour for the men in the golden uniforms with eight solid innings of one-run ball on seven hits to lead Chinatrust to a much-needed win that nipped a three-game slide.
The former Hanshin standout in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball fanned six while walking none to improve to 3-0 for the season.
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times
Offensively for the Elephants, Wang Sheng-wei’s bases-clearing three-run double down the third-base line broke a 2-0 game wide open in what ended up being a four-run fourth.
Even though the Rhinos finally scored in the bottom of the fifth to avoid a shutout, the outcome had been decided long before the final out in the ninth.
Starter Andy Sisco was charged with the loss for surrendering six runs on seven hits over four innings to drop to 5-3 for the year. It was his first defeat in nearly a month after winning Pitcher of the Month last month with a 3-1 mark.
In the night game in Kaohsiung, newcomer Freddy Garcia of Venezuela treated the sellout crowd of 12,000-plus to six innings of shutout ball on four hits before being pulled after 77 pitches.
His counterpart, Chen Hung-wen, was equally impressive for a time by holding the Rhinos scoreless through six, but he ran out of luck in a five-run seventh to suffer his second defeat of the year.
Picking up the win for the Rhinos was reliever Lin Yen-fong, who replaced Garcia in a scoreless seventh despite allowing a hit, before closer Lin Yi-hao took on mop-up duty with a near-perfect eighth and ninth to keep the shutout intact.
Doing the damage at the plate for the Rhinos was Chang Chien-ming, whose clutch double off Chen with the bases loaded sparked the five-run scoring spree that sank the Elephants.
LIONS 2, MONKEYS 1
Pan “TAKE” Wu-hsiung’s eighth-inning double with men on first and second added a pair of runs that overturned a 0-1 deficit as the Uni-President Lions rallied to overcome the top-ranked Lamigo Monkeys with no more scoring at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium last night.
The win not only extended the second-placed Cats’ winning streak to four, but also reduced the Primates’ lead over them in the standings to a single game as they look to even things up with a series-sweeping win in this afternoon’s contest.
Lin Yueh-ping was credited with the win for tossing a scoreless seventh to beat his counterpart, Chen Yu-hsun, while Kuo Hung-chih pushed his league-leading save total to 10 with a perfect ninth.
NO HARD FEELINGS: Taiwan’s Lin Hsiang-ti and Indonesia’s Dhinda Amartya Pratiwi embraced after fighting to a tense and rare 30-29 final game in their Uber Cup match The Taiwanese men’s team on Wednesday fought back from the brink of elimination to defeat Denmark in Group C and advance to the quarter-finals of the Thomas Cup, while the women’s team were to face South Korea after press time last night in the Uber Cup quarter-finals in Horsens, Denmark. In the first match, Taiwan’s top shuttler Chou Tien-chen faced a familiar opponent in world No. 3 Anders Antonsen. It was their 16th head-to-head matchup, with the Dane taking his fourth victory in a row against former world No. 2 Chou, winning 21-14, 13-21, 21-15 in 1 hour, 22 minutes. The
Marta Kostyuk’s maiden WTA 1000 title in Madrid came on Saturday thanks to her power, poise and a pair of unexpected lucky shorts. The world No. 23 beat eighth-ranked Mirra Andreeva 6-3, 7-5 in under 90 minutes to secure the most prestigious trophy of her career, her third professional singles title and second in less than a month after Rouen. Yet as the 23-year-old Ukrainian posed for photographs at the Caja Magica, it was not just the silverware that caught the eye. Held alongside her team and her two dogs, Kostyuk showed off a piece of black men’s underwear, prompting
Throwing more than US$5 billion at a divisive new tour and walking away after five seasons does not look like good business, but LIV Golf was not all bad news for Saudi Arabia. Oil-funded LIV, which poached top stars and sent golf’s establishment into a tailspin, helped push the conservative kingdom into global view — one of its key aims, experts said. The exit, confirmed on Thursday after weeks of speculation, does not signal a flight of Saudi money from sport, even after the Middle East war that sparked Iranian attacks around the Gulf, they said. “Saudi Arabia is not
Anastasia Potapova on Wednesday turned tennis heartbreak into history by becoming the first lucky loser to reach a WTA 1000 semi-final with her thrilling 6-1, 6-7 (4/7), 6-3 victory over Karolina Pliskova at the Madrid Open, as Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei exited in the women’s doubles quarter-finals. The Russian-born Austrian, who lost in qualifying last week, has capitalized on her unexpected main draw entry and stunned former world No. 1 Pliskova in a roller-coaster clash despite squandering three match points. Potapova’s run has included impressive victories over former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko and world No. 2 Elena Rybakina. Asked if she had thought
RSS