Scoring early and often, the EDA Rhinos erupted for a season-high 17 runs to utterly demolish the Uni-President Lions in a 17-2 final at the Pingtung County Baseball Stadium last night to clinch the weekend series in southern Taiwan by a 2-1 margin.
Other than a scoreless fourth, sixth and ninth, the Rhinos were all over the Lions’ pitching, notching up a record-high 24 hits off five different Lions hurlers to blow the game wide open long before the final out.
All nine of the Rhinos starting lineup had multi-hit games, with Lin Yi-chuan’s four-hit effort — including a pair of RBIs — leading the way.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
The lefty slugger out of Greater Tainan’s Nan Ying Vocational High School was a home run shy of hitting for the cycle with a single, two doubles and a triple.
Also starring for the Rhinos were Lin Tsong-nan and Lin Wei-ting, whose eight combined RBIs (five and three respectively) accounted for nearly half of their team’s total run production.
Cheng Jau-han’s two-out single off Lions starter Lin Chia-wei with the bases loaded sparked a three-hit string that tripled a seemingly manageable 2-0 lead into a 6-0 cushion in the top of the first inning for the EDA Rhinos.
Spotted with a six-run first and a four-run second, Rhinos starter Hsiao Yi-chieh was well on top of his game by blanking the Lions offense through the third before giving up his lone run in the fourth. He lasted through the sixth without allowing another run to win his fourth of the season.
Taking the loss for the Lions was starter Lin Chia-wei, who was charged with 10 runs on as many hits (seven earned) in 1-2/3 innings to fall to 0-1 for the year.
Monkeys 9, Elephants 6
The Lamigo Monkeys won for the third time in as many games to sweep their weekend series against the Chinatrust Brother Elephants at the Hualien County Baseball Stadium last night by topping the men in the golden uniforms.
The defeat by the free-falling Elephants extended their losing skid to six straight and counting, with no signs of improvement being showed.
Even though the Elephants’ offense finally broke out of a 10-inning scoring drought by plating six runs in the game, it was still not enough to translate into a “W” for them as their generous pitching served up eight runs through the fourth to fall behind by six runs.
Monkeys starter Hsu Ming-chieh followed his complete-game shutout outing last weekend with five solid innings of four-run ball (two earned) to put himself in a good position to win his third of the year.
Tagged with the loss was Hsu’s counterpart, Lin Yu-ching, who dropped to 2-5 for the year after allowing eight runs on 11 hits over 3-2/3 innings of play.
Four-time NBA all-star DeMarcus Cousins arrived in Taiwan with his family early yesterday to finish his renewed contract with the Taiwan Beer Leopards in the T1 League. Cousins initially played a four-game contract with the Leopards in January. On March 18, the Taoyuan-based team announced that Cousins had renewed his contract. “Hi what’s up Leopard fans, I’m back. I’m excited to be back and can’t wait to join the team,” Cousins said in a video posted on the Leopard’s Facebook page. “Most of all, can’t wait to see you guys, the fans, next weekend. So make sure you come out and support the Beer
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