Taichung Veetime blew a 2-1 lead wide open with a five-run eighth and held off a four-run rally in the ninth by National Sports Training Center to escape with a 7-5 win at the Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium yesterday afternoon.
The win not only extended Veetime’s winning streak to three straight, well in pace with the top-ranked Taiwan Cooperative Bank, but also clinched the three-game series over the weekend between the two clubs following Veetime’s come-from-behind win on Friday afternoon.
Back-to-back homers by Kao Pong-hsiang and Wang Chi-wei, a two-run shot by the former and a solo blast by the latter, highlighted the five-run eighth as Veetime teed off against the National Sports Training Center pitching to take a 7-1 lead.
The Sports Trainers would not go away quietly as they countered with four runs in the bottom of the ninth, sparked by Dionys Cesar’s two-run homer that brought them to within two of Veetime.
That was as close as they got as Hsu Cheng-chi calmly recorded the final out in the ninth with the tying run on deck to preserve the first win of the season for starter Chiang Chung-cheng, who allowed a run on three hits over 5-1/3 innings of play despite walking three and hitting a batter.
Charged with the loss was National Sports Training Center starter Chiou Hao-chun, who gave up two runs on seven hits over 5-1/3 frames in what would have been a decent outing if it had not been for an anemic offense that provided him just a lone run of support through the seventh.
TAIPOWER 5, CHII LIH CORAL 1
Taipower made it two wins in a row by plating five unanswered runs against Greater Taitung’s Chii Lih Coral to run away with a victory at the Chiayi Municipal Baseball Stadium yesterday afternoon.
Edgardo Baez’s two-run single with the bases loaded turned a 0-1 deficit into a 2-1 lead for the Power Crew in what ended up being a three-run fourth.
Chii Lih Coral had plenty of opportunities to make a game of it with seven hits off Taipower pitching.
Failure to come up with timely hits was the culprit as they managed to plate only one unearned run in the game while stranding nine runners in a game that should have been closer than the final score indicated.
Taiwan Cooperative Bank, Falcons
Top-ranked Taiwan Cooperative Bank broke a 4-4 tie with the go-ahead run in the top of the sixth against the Topco Scientific Falcons on the merit of Yang Hsian-hsian’s solo home run and went on to win 6-4 at the Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium last night.
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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
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