Having won four straight and eight of their past dozen, the Lamigo Monkeys have quietly ascended past the struggling Uni-President Lions to take second spot in the standings.
The potent Primates offense, led by Lin Chih-sheng and Chen Chun-hsiu’s red-hot bats, have averaged more than seven runs per game in their past 12 contests to outslug their opponents with an 8-4 record.
The bashing tandem started their reign of terror when Chen broke out for four RBIs on a three-hit night on Sept. 3 and topped it off with five RBIs the following day, including two homers, to lift his team to victories. He went 17 for 44 (.386) with four home runs and 20 RBIs in his past dozen to account for nearly 25 percent of his team’s total run production.
Not to be outshone by Chen, Lin has driven in 16 on an 18-for-49 (.367) run, with six homers over the same 12-game stretch to provide a colossal boost to the defending champions’ offensive output.
“People might have counted us out earlier in the month, but we’ve proven them wrong by scoring runs consistently,” Lin said earlier in the week.
He has had five multi-hit games in the past 12 to give Monkeys fans something to talk about.
While the Primates are on a rampage, the Lions’ season has gone in the other direction, as they dropped from second to third in the standings and are on the verge of dropping out of playoff contention due to a recent free fall, in which they lost nine of the past 12, including a six-game slide.
Poor pitching was the culprit, as the Lions’ offense actually averaged nearly five runs per game — compared with the six runs that the Lions’ pitchers allowed per game over the same span — and could have won at least four of the nine losses if the pitching had not given up too many runs to spoil the potential wins.
The four-game win streak in the middle of last month that brought the Lions to as close as two-and-a-half games of the league-leading Chinatrust Brothers seems very far away, as the Lions look to regroup in a hurry to keep their post-season hopes alive.
Consistent starting pitching is undoubtedly the solution to the Lions’ current problem, as they cannot afford to give up quick leads to put even more pressure on a lineup that is not exactly blowing by their opposition.
“We really have to buckle down and keep the games close with a better job from our starters,” skipper Chen Lien-hung was quoted as saying by Chinese-language media.
His starters have allowed four or more runs through the fifth in five of their past dozen to dig holes that were often too deep for the Lions offense to overcome.
“I don’t remember the moment, but ever since I was a kid, that’s the first thing I loved,” two-time NBA All-Star Isaiah Thomas said of his lifelong romance with basketball. However, that journey unfolded against the limitations of his size in a game where height often dictates opportunity — a reality he confronted throughout his career. At 175cm, Thomas is less than 2cm taller than the average Taiwanese adult male, while NBA players during his career stood at about 200cm on average. Compared with the NBA’s average career length of less than five years, Thomas’ 13-season career stands out as
Hans Niemann declares he would become a “stone cold killer” in a Netflix documentary released on Tuesday about his feud with five-time classical world champion Magnus Carlsen, a pledge that injects new edge into the lingering fallout from the cheating scandal that shook elite chess. “I’m gonna be a stone cold killer the rest of my life,” the US’ Niemann says in the film. “I’m going to become the best player in the world, and no one is going to believe that now, but this clip will play over and over again in 10 years — just wait.” “I just
Dakar and Rabat have longstanding ties, but relations have been strained since the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final, which Senegal won in mid-January before being stripped of the title, which was transferred to Morocco. Now, the AFCON trophy is something of a thorn in the two countries’ sides. On Rue Mohamed V, the street where Moroccan vendors are based in the Senegalese capital, a police van is parked. “The police have been on high alert since the Confederation of African Football [CAF] decided to award the title to Morocco, but there have been no incidents,” a local resident said.
Taiwanese “boxing queen” Chen Nien-chin today won the women’s 65kg division final at the Asian Boxing Elite Championships in Ulaanbaatar, securing Taiwan’s first gold medal in that weight class at the tournament. Chen defeated North Korea’s Hwang Hyo Sun 4-1, after the two were tied through the first two rounds. Chen won bronze in the 66kg division at the Paris Olympics in 2024.
RSS