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.
By the time Cameron Menzies finally left the arena on Monday, the blood gushing from the gash on his right hand had trickled down his wrist, part of his forearm and — somehow — up to his face. Smeared in crimson and regret, and already mouthing sheepish apologies to the crowd, he disappeared down the steps, pursued by a stern-looking Matt Porter, the chief executive of Professional Darts Corp (PDC). The physical scars from Menzies’ encounter with the Alexandra Palace drinks table after his 3-2 defeat against Charlie Manby at the Darts World Championship would be gone within a few weeks.
Manchester United on Monday blew the lead three times to miss out on moving up to fifth in the Premier League as AFC Bournemouth would not be beaten in a thrilling 4-4 draw at Old Trafford. United have lost just once in their past 10 games, but Ruben Amorim would be frustrated as more points at home were frittered away despite arguably the best attacking display of his reign in charge. Amad Diallo and Casemiro gave the hosts a halftime lead either side of Antoine Semenyo’s equalizer. Two Bournemouth goals from Evanilson and Marcus Tavernier in seven minutes at the start of the
LOW-GOAL SHOOT-OUT: Of the nine penalties in the shoot-out, only three went in, with Flamengo’s Samuel Lino, and Vitinha and Nuno Mendes of PSG netting Matvei Safonov on Wednesday made four straight penalty saves in a penalty shoot-out to help Paris Saint-Germain beat Flamengo in the Intercontinental Cup final and win a sixth trophy of the year. The Russian goalkeeper was thrown in the air by his teammates after his exploits in the shoot-out, which was won 2-1 by PSG after a 1-1 draw after extra-time. It completed a trophy-laden 12 months for the French team, who had already won the Trophee des Champions, Ligue 1, the Coupe de France, the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Super Cup — also on penalties against Tottenham Hotspur in
Italian Luca de Aliprandini described Saturday’s World Cup giant slalom at Val d’Isere as the hardest race of his life, coming two days after his Swiss partner Michelle Gisin suffered a heavy fall in training which required neck surgery. De Aliprandini finished 26th in the men’s event won by Loic Meillard, but the result paled into insignificance with two-time Olympic ski champion Gisin in hospital with injuries to her wrist, knee and cervical spine (neck). “It was Michelle’s wish that I race here. I couldn’t say no to her, but it was the toughest race of my entire life,” an emotional De
RSS