Back-to-back extra-base hits by Liu Fu-hao and Pan “TAKE” Wu-hsiung in the bottom of the eighth scored a pair of runs for the Uni-President Lions as they rallied from a run down with a two-run eighth to top the Chinatrust Brother Elephants 3-2 at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium last night.
It was the second one-run win for the Lions this week, as the Cats also rallied for two runs late in the game to turn back the top-ranked Lamigo Monkeys in Tainan on Tuesday by the same score.
Trailing 1-2 in the bottom of the eighth, Lin Chih-shiang singled off Elephants reliever Guan Da-yuan with one out to put himself in a scoring position for Liu’s game-tying RBI triple.
That set up TAKE’s sharp double to left that drove in the go-ahead run, which the Lions promptly preserved with closer Kuo Hung-chih retiring the side in order in the top of the ninth for his league-leading 14th save of the year.
With the pressure to win mounting following their 1-0 shutout loss to the EDA Rhinos on Thursday that set a new team-high losing streak of seven, the Elephants opened the contest with a quick run off Lions starter Liao Wen-yang in the opening frame when Chang Cheng-we led off the game with a single and took second on an errant throw before reaching home on a sacrifice fly by Huang Shih-hao.
Chinatrust doubled their lead in the third with newcomer Jim Negrych’s first home run of the season, a solo shot off Liao that made it 2-0.
The two-run lead for the Elephants lasted through the fifth, before the Lions finally scored in the sixth when Liu went deep against Elephants starter Cheng Kai-wen with his fourth homer of the season.
That cut the Elephants lead in half, setting the stage for the Lions’ game-turning rally in the eighth.
Pocketing the win was Liao, who allowed two runs (only one earned) on five hits over eight innings to beat Cheng, who went seven strong innings in a five-hit outing before handing the game to Guan in the fateful eighth.
The win not only brought the second-place Cats to within three games of the league-leading Monkeys, who lost in their game against the EDA Rhinos in greater Kaohsiung on the same night, but also handed the free-falling Elephants their eighth straight defeat as their losing skid reached a season-high eight.
Monkeys 3, Rhinos 7
The EDA Rhinos took advantage of a six-run sixth to cool off the top-ranked Lamigo Monkeys at the Cheng Ching Lake Baseball Stadium in Greater Kaohsiung last night to tie the Primates in their weekend series at one win apiece.
Freddie Freeman homered and drove in four runs, Shohei Ohtani also went deep and Roki Sasaki earned his first major league win as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 10-3 on Saturday night for their seventh straight victory. The Dodgers have won the first two games of the series to improve to 5-0 against Atlanta this year. Los Angeles’ three-game sweep at home early in the season left the Braves 0-7. Sasaki allowed three runs and six hits over five innings. The 23-year-old right-hander gave up a home run to Ozzie Albies, but received plenty of offensive support in his
FOCUS: ‘We came out here with a goal in mind ... to keep our foot on their throat and on their neck, and continue to play 48 minutes of basketball,’ Donovan Mitchell said The Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday thrashed the Miami Heat to cruise into the next round of the NBA playoffs as the Golden State Warriors battled past the Houston Rockets 109-106 to move to the brink of a series victory. After pounding Miami 124-87 in game three on Saturday, No.1 Eastern Conference seeds Cleveland once again piled on the misery for their outclassed opponents with a crushing 138-83 victory to complete a 4-0 series win. The 55-point drubbing was the largest series-clinching victory in NBA playoff history and sets up a series against either the Indiana Pacers or Milwaukee Bucks in
Shuttler Lin Chun-yi yesterday kept Taiwan on the board as they faced their first major challenge of the group stage after marching into the last eight at the Sudirman Cup Finals in Xiamen, China. Taiwan were losing 3-1 to South Korea as of press time last night, with only the men’s doubles match remaining. Taiwan and four-time champions South Korea have already progressed to the quarter-finals, after Taiwan on Monday blanked the Czech Republic 5-0 without giving up a single game. Before last night’s tie, Taiwan were undefeated in Group B, with a 9-1 match record, ahead of South Korea, who, although also
A man fell from the 6.4m-high Clemente Wall in right field at PNC Park in Pittsburgh during Wednesday night’s game between the Pirates and the Chicago Cubs. Right after Andrew McCutchen hit a two-run double in the seventh inning to put the Pirates ahead 4-3, players began waving frantically for medical personnel and pointing to the man, who had fallen onto the warning track. The fan was tended to for approximately five minutes by members of both the Pirates and Cubs training staffs as well as PNC personnel before being removed from the field on a cart. The team issued a statement shortly
RSS