The Chinatrust Brothers avenged an embarrassing loss to the EDA Rhinos on Friday night, edging their foes in a 5-4 thriller at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium last night to even the weekend series at one win apiece.
Chen Hung-wen came out of the bullpen with two outs and the tying run on base in the top of the eighth for the Brothers — after the Rhinos had scored three straight to make it 5-4 — and struck out the next batter he faced to end the Rhinos’ scoring threat.
He followed that up with a brilliant one-two-three ninth to preserve the win for the league leaders.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
“It was a big win for us, especially with a hot team like [the Rhinos]; [Chen] really bailed us out in the end,” Brothers manager Wu Fu-lien said after the game.
His troops needed a big outing from Chen and got just that from the ace closer to avenge Friday night’s 17-1 loss.
Chinatrust opened the contest yesterday with a quick run in the opening frame when Chang Cheng-wei led off the bottom of the inning with a single off Rhinos starter Gaby Hernandez, took third on a pick-off attempt to first that sailed wide and scored on Lin Wei-chu’s groundout to first.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
Lin knocked in his second run of the game in the third with a two-out single before the Rhinos answered with a run of their own in the top of the fourth off Brothers starter Mike McClendon to make it 2-1.
The Brothers added to their lead with two runs in the fourth and another run in the fifth, which included a towering home run by Chen Chia-chui, only to see the Rhinos fight back with a three-run eighth on the back of three singles and a clutch double by Hu Chin-lung.
That was as close as they got with the Brothers bullpen stealing the show late to preserve the ninth win of the season for McClendon.
Taking the loss was Hernandez, who allowed five runs on eight hits over 4-2/3 innings to fall to 3-4 for the year.
MONKEYS 9, LIONS 7
The Lamigo Monkeys evened their series against the Uni-President Lions at one win each by topping the Cats at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium last night.
Lin Chih-sheng had a career night at the plate, going deep against the Lions pitching three times to drive in a career-high seven runs. Even though the Lions kept things close with a three-run eighth to make it a two-run game and nearly dampened Lin’s 200th career homer, the veteran slugger still had the final say.
Picking up his fourth win of the season was Lamigo starter Hsu Ming-chieh, who tossed 5-1/3 innings of four-run ball (two earned) on six hits, while the loss was charged to Wang Ching-ming, who gave up six runs on 10 hits, including two of Lin’s three blasts.
The Philadelphia 76ers, fueled by 36 points from Tyrese Maxey and a triple-double from Joel Embiid, on Thursday beat the Houston Rockets 128-122 in an NBA overtime thriller. Cameroonian big man Embiid scored 32 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and handed out 10 assists, posting the ninth triple-double of his career to help the Sixers end the Rockets’ three-game winning streak. Rockets star Kevin Durant scored 36 points and Amen Thompson added 17, but Thompson was scoreless in the fourth quarter. Even so, the Rockets led by nine midway through the final frame, Maxey tying it at 115-115 with 40.1 seconds left. Durant missed a
Tobias Harris on Monday scored 25 points as the Detroit Pistons held off the Boston Celtics to score a 104-103 victory in their top-of-the-table Eastern Conference showdown. Harris was one of four Detroit players to finish in double figures, with Jalen Duren adding 18 points and point guard Cade Cunningham scoring 16 points with 14 assists. The win sees Detroit extend their lead at the top of the Eastern Conference to 31-10, 5.5 games ahead of second-placed Boston, who fell to 26-16 with the defeat. Jaylen Brown led the Celtics scoring with 32 points and almost snatched victory in the
The Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo on Friday said that he will probably be out for an extended period after hurting his right calf again after a similar injury caused him to miss eight games earlier this season. Antetokounmpo had his right calf wrapped in the first half of their 102-100 loss to the Denver Nuggets. He did not appear comfortable the rest of the night and left for good with 34 seconds remaining. “At the end, I could not move no more, so I had to stop playing,” Antetokounmpo said. The two-time NBA Most Valuable Player said he expected to undergo an MRI
The chaotic scenes which tarnished Sunday’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final will forever overshadow a tournament that had until that point been a great success for hosts Morocco, on and off the pitch. Everything appeared set up for Walid Regragui’s Morocco side to cement their status as Africa’s preeminent footballing force as the continent’s top-ranked team made it to the final against Senegal in Rabat. Home advantage unquestionably brought extra pressure on the 2022 FIFA World Cup semi-finalists, but it also perhaps played into their hands for the controversial penalty award at the end of normal time in the