The Lamigo Monkeys cranked out three big home runs to trounce the Uni-President Lions 10-3 and claim the Taiwan Series at the Taoyuan International Stadium last night, their sixth championship.
The 4-2 series scoreline confirmed the Monkeys as the most dominant CPBL team of the past decade, with five titles since 2012.
Lamigo first baseman Chen Chun-hsiu took the Series MVP award after batting at .500 throughout the series to go with clutch hits.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
Lamigo manager Hong Yi-chung received the trophy on behalf of his players.
“All the credit goes to the coaching staff and players for their outstanding performance,” Hong said.
“We have won the championship for the second year in a row and next year we will go for three in a row,” he said.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
“It has not been easy; there was lots of pressure on us when we lost the second and third game in the series, but we returned home to Taoyuan and made adjustments,” he said.
“It is fantastic to win the championship in front of our home fans,” he said.
Two US pitchers started the game, with Michael Nix for Lamigo, while the Lions countered with Josh Roenicke on the mound.
The Lions got on the board first through shortstop Yang Chia-wei’s cracking double to drive in a run in the top half of the second frame.
It did not take long for the Monkeys to reply.
In the bottom of the inning, catcher Lin Hong-yu smashed a solo homer to level the scores.
Lamigo’s core line-up ignited in the fourth inning, pushing home three runs against Roenicke.
Slugger Wang Po-jung earned a walk on four balls to start the rally, before clean-up hitter Chen Chun-hsiu slapped a grounder up the middle, on which an error by a Lions outfielder allowed Wang and Chen to reach second and third.
Lin earned his second RBI of the night, punching a sharp line-drive single through the left side.
Outfielder Chu Yu-hsien drove in another run from third base on a sacrifice fly, before shortstop Lin Cheng-fei hit an RBI-single to collect the third run in the rally.
Lamigo were in front 4-1, but the tenacious Lions did not quit.
In the next frame, the Lions’ top order closed the gap, with leadoff hitter Chen Chieh-hsien ripping a double and outfielder Su Chih-chieh pounding a single to send Chen home, making it 4-2.
Two innings later, with Nix departed, the Lions had a pinch-hitter on with a walk after one out. The same combination clawed back another run, with Chen Chieh-hsien’s single allowing Su a second RBI on a single to right field.
The visitors trailed by only one at 4-3 at the top of the seventh.
However, in the bottom half of the frame, facing new pitchers Andy van Hekken and Wang Chin-ming, Lamigo exploded for six runs to put the game out of reach and fans began celebrating victory.
Third baseman Kuo Yung-wei blasted a solo homer to open the floodgates, then Lamigo increased their lead with runs from Wang Po-jung’s RBI single and Lin Hong-yu’s sacrifice fly.
Chu ended all hope for the Lions, when, with two runners on, he connected on a fastball for a three-run homer.
US Open champion Emma Raducanu’s grandmother Niculina Raducanu wanted her to quit tennis because of concern about the teen’s health after breathing difficulties forced her to retire from Wimbledon this year. The 88-year-old Romanian told the Daily Mail that her granddaughter’s “health is more important” than wealth or fame. Fortunately for the 18-year-old Briton, neither her father, Ian Raducanu — Niculina Raducanu’s son — nor her Chinese mother, Renee Raducanu, took the advice and she swept through the US Open to become the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam title. Niculina Raducanu — known to Emma as “Mamiya,” a Romanian term of
REVENUE SHARING: The US Soccer Federation said it believes that the best path forward for the men’s and women’s national soccer teams is a single pay structure The US Soccer Federation (USSF) on Tuesday said that it has offered “identical” contracts to its men’s and women’s national teams as part of efforts to end a long-running gender pay dispute. A statement from the USSF said that the proposed contracts had been sent to the players’ associations acting on behalf of the US men’s national team (USMNT) and US women’s national team (USWNT), with the goal being to bring the national squads under a single collective bargaining agreement (CBA). “US Soccer firmly believes that the best path forward for all involved, and for the future of the sport in the
Making money in boxing means never having to say: “Sorry.” Not for allowing Evander Holyfield to risk his life at the age of 58 just to make a few bucks. Certainly not for stealing money from gullible fans for a farce of a pay-per-view show that would have done terrible damage to the sport if only the sport was not so badly damaged already. No one was apologizing — at least not loud enough to hear — among the crew at the Triller Fight Club, a fledging promotional outfit on the fringe of boxing. They managed to get Holyfield licensed in Florida and
Brazil’s Gabriel Medina on Tuesday won his third surfing World Championship, beating compatriot Filipe Toledo in a new, best-of-three final format in southern Californian surf. Not even the appearance of a 1.8m-long shark in the last heat could unsettle Medina, who qualified in the top spot for the five-man, one-day event, giving him the luxury of a direct passage to the final at Lower Trestles in San Clemente. Hawaii’s Carissa Moore, the reigning Olympic and world champion, capped a dominant year to win her fifth world title over Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb in the women’s final. Under a new format introduced this year, the
RSS