The Topco Scientific Falcons rallied for nine unanswered runs from the sixth inning on to turn a 0-3 deficit into a 9-3 win over the top-ranked Taiwan Cooperative Bank at the Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium yesterday afternoon.
Brahiam Maldonado had a career day at the plate with five RBIs on a three-hit effort to lift the underdogs past the Bankers. The Puerto Rican slugger came out of a 0-for-8 slump by connecting on a bases-clearing three-run triple to highlight a six-run seventh that gave the Falcons the lead for good. He went on to drive in a season-high five runs to account for more than half of his team’s total offense.
The Bankers jumped all over Falcons starter Kuo Hen-hsiao with two runs in the opening frame and added to the cushion with a run in the fifth to enjoy a seemingly comfortable 3-0 lead.
Photo courtesy of the CTBA
However, things took a nasty turn south for them in the seventh, after the Falcons managed to score their first run in the sixth to trail by two, courtesy of Maldonado’s game-turning three-run triple.
The three early runs by the Bankers proved to be all the offense they could muster, as starter Kuo kept the damage to a minimum through the fifth, before reliever Yo Tsong-rue and fellow righty Amaury Rivas led a stingy bullpen who clamped the scoring door shut for good.
Taking the loss for the Bankers was Lin Yi-di, who did not have his best outing as he was charged for the runs in the fateful seventh.
TAIPOWER 6, CHII LIH CORAL 7
Taitung’s Chii Lih Coral nipped a two-game slide with a narrow win over Taipower at the Chiayi Municipal Baseball Stadium yesterday afternoon to split the weekend set with one win apiece.
VEETIME 4, NATIONAL SPORTS 7
National Sports Training Center avenged a pair of losses to Taichung Veetime with a win at the Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium last night to avoid being swept in the weekend series.
Trailing 0-1 after three innings of play, National Sports tied things up at 1-1 with a monstrous swing by Edgard Clemente for a solo shot in the bottom of the fourth.
That set up a pair of RBI singles by Lin Ming-chieh and Luo Kuen that made it 3-1, a lead that National Sports did not relinquish.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite