Tseng Chao-hao pitched eight-plus innings of one-hit ball, Kuo Yung-wei drove in a pair of runs on a 2-for-4 night as the last-place Lamigo Monkeys humbled the Uni-President Lions in a 4-0 shutout at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium last night to take the weekend series on the road.
It was by far Tseng’s best outing of the year as the veteran righty took a no-hitter into the ninth, before the Lions’ Liu Yu-cheng bounced a hard grounder just beyond the reach of a diving Kuo for the Cats’ first hit of the game, breaking up Tseng’s no-hit bid.
“It’s one of those games where you hope for [a no-hitter], but really don’t expect it,” Tseng said after the game.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Even though he missed out on the no-hitter, he still pocketed the shutout victory and his first win of the year.
Lan Ying-lung’s solo homer off Lions starter Chiang Cheng-fong in the top of the first spotted Tseng a 1-0 lead.
The 1-0 lead soon became 2-0 in the fourth when Kuo Yen-wen also connected on a long ball off Chiang for his sixth round-tripper of the year.
Even though Chiang pitched the next three frames without giving up another run, the damage had already been done as the 2-0 score lasted deep into the contest with Tseng on top of his game before the Monkeys offense tacked on two more runs in the ninth to conclude the scoring.
Chiang suffered his second loss of the year, despite pitching seven solid innings of two-run ball on seven hits in a quality start.
RHINOS 6, BROTHERS 3
The EDA Rhinos took care of business in their visit to the Chinatrust Brothers last night as they topped the men in the golden uniforms at the Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium to take the series.
Freddy Garcia showed no signs of slowing down, taking a 4-1 lead two outs into the eighth before being pulled in his third straight quality start. The former Major League player has quietly won three in a row after dropping two earlier in the month to improve to 9-6 for the season. Other than a solo home run that he surrendered to Chen Tzu-hao in the fifth, he made sure every one of the three runs were hard-earned by the Lions.
Offensively for the Primates, four different players had multi-hit games, led by Lin Wei-ting’s 3-for-5 effort with an RBI.
Trailing by three with Garcia running up his pitch count, the Brothers managed to score twice in the eighth to make it 4-3.
That was as close as they got, as the Rhinos bullpen took over with 1-1/3 innings of shutout ball to preserve the win for Garcia.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
The Minnesota Timberwolves, with so many promising performances spoiled by late mistakes fresh in their memory bank, sure timed this strong finish well. Jaden McDaniels scored a career playoff-high 30 points and spearheaded Minnesota’s stifling defense on an ailing Luka Doncic, and the Timberwolves beat the Los Angeles Lakers 116-104 to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference first-round series in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Friday night. “Jaden never looks tired. He looks like he could play 48 minutes,” said teammate Anthony Edwards, who had 29 points, eight rebounds and eight assists. Julius Randle added 22 points for the Wolves, who outscored
Inter’s defense of their Italian Serie A title was hit with a setback on Sunday as they lost 1-0 at home to AS Roma, while Scott McTominay netted a brace as SSC Napoli beat Torino 2-0 to go top of the table. No fixtures were played on Friday or Saturday because of the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, meaning the full round of Serie A matches took place on Sunday and yesterday. Matias Soule’s first-half strike for Roma knocked Inter off top spot earlier in the day before new Napoli opened up a three-point buffer with victory in Sunday’s
Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa yesterday set a women’s only world record of 2 hours, 15 minutes, 50 seconds as she won the London Marathon, while Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe put a star-studded men’s field to the sword. For 28-year-old Assefa it was ample compensation for finishing runner-up in London and the Paris Olympics last year — especially as bitter Dutch rival, the Ethiopia-born Sifan Hassan, finished third. Assefa dropped Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei as the race, played out in blazing sunshine and with thousands lining the route, entered its business end. She came home almost three minutes clear of the Kenyan. Hassan, who beat her in
RSS