The Brothers Baseball Club last night beat the EDA Rhinos 16-4 to narrow the CPBL second-half gap, with the Rhinos now atop the table with a two-game lead over the Brothers and the Lamigo Monkeys, two weeks before Taiwan’s professional baseball season wraps up for the start of playoffs.
Cranking out 18 hits against four opposition pitchers, the Brothers piled on the runs with red-hot batting to hand the Rhinos their second loss in two days, putting a stop to EDA’s five-game winning streak over the past week.
US right-handed pitcher Bryan Woodall started on the mound for the Brothers at Taichung Intercontinental Stadium for the evening contest. Woodall mowed down EDA hitters to pick up his sixth win of the season, pitching seven innings and yielding only one run, while throwing six strikeouts.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
In yesterday’s other game, the Uni-President Lions edged the Lamigo Monkeys 6-5 in 10 innings in Tainan.
It was the second of a three-game series for the Lions on their home field, the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium.
On Friday, in the first game of the series, the Lions invited American Institute in Taiwan Director Kin Moy to throw the ceremonial first pitch.
It was Moy’s first time at a Taiwanese professional baseball game, and he was received at the ballpark by Tainan Mayor William Lai.
At the special event, jointly organized by the ball club and the Tainan City Government, Moy also met Taiwanese baseball’s famous Chen brothers — who are Siraya Aborigines and Tainan natives — Chen Chin-feng and his elder brother, Chen Lien-hung, the former Lions skipper and current coach.
Moy lauded Chen Chin-feng, the first Taiwanese player to play in the US’ Major League Baseball and the most prolific hitter for Team Taiwan, saying he contributed greatly to the development of baseball in Taiwan.
Moy went on to credit Lai for his vision to construct the city’s soon-to-be-finished Asia-Pacific Baseball Park, endorsing the development and saying it will provide a new ballpark for both residents and visiting teams from abroad, which will spur the further growth of the game in the nation and host international tournaments.
“As a life-long baseball fan, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to throw the first pitch at the baseball game in Tainan between the Uni-President Lions and Lamigo Monkeys and relieved that I got the pitch over the plate,” Moy wrote online.
“In the US, baseball is a game that also connects fathers and sons. When I was young, my dad and I would spend the summer months playing catch in the backyard. It is still one of the fondest memories I have of my childhood,” Moy said, thanking Lai and the Uni-President Lions for the invitation.
Moy also participated in the pitching and batting practice of National Chiayi University’s women’s team, where he encouraged female students to take up sports.
“In the United States, Taiwan and many other places, sports have helped empower countless women and girls to achieve their dreams,” he said.
The Rakuten Monkeys on Sunday downed the CTBC Brothers 2-1, handing the hosts their second consecutive loss in the best-of-seven CPBL Taiwan Series at the Taipei Dome. Monkeys’ ace starter Pedro Fernandez of the Dominican Republic dominated on the mound, cruising through six scoreless innings before giving up a run on a wild pitch in the bottom of the seventh inning. He gave up only three hits and walked two batters in a 93-pitch outing, giving his Taoyuan-based team an edge. Offensively, the Monkeys’ leadoff batter Lin Li hit Brothers starter Brandon Leibrandt’s pitch over the center-field wall in the game’s first at-bat,
Rafael Leao on Sunday shot AC Milan to the top of Serie A with a brace in a 2-1 win over ACF Fiorentina who were enraged by the “scandalous” awarding of the penalty that decided the game. Portugal winger Leao pushed Milan one point ahead of local rivals Inter, SSC Napoli and AS Roma with a coolly taken spot-kick, given for what looked like a soft foul on Santiago Gimenez by Fabiano Parisi, with four minutes remaining. That goal capped a fine first league start of the season for Leao and came after he drew the hosts level with a brilliantly struck
The tiny village club of Mjallby AIF on Monday won the top tier Swedish soccer league with a 2-0 away win at IFK Gothenburg, sealing the title with three rounds of matches remaining. Jacob Bergstrom and Tom Pettersson scored the goals in Mjallby’s 20th win in 27 league games. Mjallby has a population of fewer than 1,400 people and plays in an outdated 6,000-seat stadium with stands weathered by the winds of the Baltic Sea. “It’s a huge relief to experience this now, a relief with three games to go,” said Anders Torstensson, a former army officer and secondary-school teacher who coaches the
Jahmyr Gibbs was offered oxygen on the bench after a 78-yard run. He turned it down. Clearly, he was not out of breath. Gibbs on Monday scored on a long sprint in the second quarter, a five-yard spinning plunge in the third and accounted for a career-high 218 yards from the scrimmage to lead the Detroit Lions in a 24-9 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “You felt like this was coming,” Detroit coach Dan Campbell said. “This has been building.” The Lions (5-2) bounced back from a loss as they have done flawlessly for nearly three years, extending their NFL-long streak of 51 games