Avenging the hard-fought, series-opening loss against the Sinon Bulls on Thursday night in Kaohsiung, the La New Bears successfully defended their home turf in Games 2 and 3 with a pair of three-run victories (3-0 on Friday and 6-3 on Sunday) to claim their second series in a row.
After the heart-breaking 1-2 loss, the Bears played the league-leading Bulls toe-to-toe for seven scoreless innings in what appeared to be another close finish. Then came back-to-back scoring singles by Bear hitters Lu Jung-hsiung (呂俊雄) and Shih Chih-wei (石志偉) in the bottom of the eighth that cleared the bases to give the Bears a 3-0 lead.
Bear reliever Lee Fong-hua (李風華) pitched two innings of one-hit relief for the win as he combined with starter Phillip Bailey for the Bears' second shutout win of the season.
Receiving no run support at all, Bulls starter Osvaldo Martinez suffered his third defeat of the season, while allowing two runs on three hits in seven innings of work.
With the series tied at one game apiece, the Bears' Japanese skipper Ohda Takushi sent fellow countryman Iriki Satoshi to the mound to take on Bull lefty Jeff Andra of the United States.
The game began with the Bulls jumping to a quick two-run lead in the top of the second on leftfielder Luo Song-yung's (羅松永) RBI single to center and right fielder Yang Jin-hsiung's (楊進雄) sacrifice fly.
The Bears fought back in the fifth with leadoff man Huang Long-yi's (黃龍義) two-run double to tie the game at 2-2 and then took a 3-2 lead on third baseman Shih Chih-wei's run-scoring single.
Three more runs crossed the plate in the Bears' eighth inning, after the Bulls had tied the game up at 3-3 on third baseman Chang Tai-shan's (張泰山) RBI single in the top of the eighth.
Iriki Satoshi won for the second time this season in a complete-game effort, while Bulls reliever Ho Jee-shian (何紀賢) took the loss for yielding three runs in the decisive eighth.
Elsewhere in the league, the Chinatrust Whales snapped their 10-game losing streak with two convincing wins over the defending champs, the Brother Elephants, on Friday and Saturday night.
The Macoto Cobras matched their 9-2 victory over the President Lions on Thursday night in Tainan with another 9-2 thrashing of the home team on Sunday to become the league's first 10-game winner. The victory promptly put the Cobras on top of the league in the latest standings, after the Bulls had dropped two straight to slip into second place.
Doping fears prevented former US Open champion Emma Raducanu from treating insect bites on the eve of the Australian Open, she said, with players increasingly wary about ingesting contaminated substances. The British player was speaking in the wake of high-profile doping cases involving Iga Swiatak and Jannik Sinner. “I would say all of us are probably quite sensitive to what we take on board, what we use,” the 22-year-old said, recalling an incident on Friday. “I got really badly bitten by, I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” she added. The bites “flared up and swelled up really a
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