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.
ANFIELD BLUES: Kylian Mbappe arrived at Anfield on a run of 21 goals in 17 games, but he managed just three attempts in the match, none of them hitting the target Kylian Mbappe has been nearly unstoppable this season, but he hit a roadblock in their UEFA Champions League match at Anfield on Tuesday. For the second year running, the Real Madrid forward had a night to forget at Merseyside as Liverpool won 1-0. Mbappe looked a shadow of the player who has been tearing defenses apart all season. “We were lacking that threat in the final third,” said Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, without naming Mbappe individually. The FIFA World Cup winner for France rarely looked capable of finding a breakthrough against a Liverpool team who have been so defensively fragile for much of the
LOCAL SUCCESS: In the doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in straight sets Elena Rybakina on Monday punched her ticket to the WTA Finals last four with an impressive 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 victory over second seed Iga Swiatek in round-robin play in Riyadh. After cruising past Amanda Anisimova in her opener on Saturday, Rybakina claimed her second win of the week to guarantee herself top spot in the Serena Williams Group. Anisimova on Monday rallied back from a set and a break down to triumph 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in her all-American battle with seventh seed Madison Keys, who has been eliminated from the competition. “Madi was playing so well, it was quite a battle out there,”
Erling Haaland on Sunday scored twice to propel Manchester City up to second in the English Premier League with a 3-1 win over AFC Bournemouth. The Cherries started the day in second thanks to the longest unbeaten run in the English top flight, but Andoni Iraola’s side were undone by the scintillating form of the Norwegian striker, who took his tally to 13 Premier League goals in 10 games. Haaland’s relentless streak is maintaining City’s title challenge as they reduced the gap to leaders Arsenal back to six points and edged one point ahead of Liverpool, who they face at the weekend. “Important
For almost 30 minutes, Vitomir Maricic did not take a breath. Face down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible. When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes. However, even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit. “Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, told reporters, reflecting on the record-breaking day on June 14. “When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.
RSS