Local pitchers delivered again for the undefeated Macoto Cobras in Games 3 and 4 of their four-game series against the Chinatrust Whales as they finished off the marine creatures in sweeping style with a pair of 2-1 victories last week in Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League.
Ace lefty Lin Ying-jeh held off an eager Whales attack, desperately in search of redemption following an embarrassing 18-1 blowout loss to the serpents on Tuesday, by limiting the Whales to one run on five hits in a complete-game outing.
Lin fanned five and walked two, boosting his league-leading strikeouts mark to 95.
PHOTO: MACOTO COBRAS
Lin's brilliant effort onthe mound overshadowed a solid performance by Whales starter Emiliano Giron, who allowed only two runs on eight hits in seven innings, while striking out a season-high 11 to trail Lin by two strikeouts (93) for the year.
Offensively for the serpents, third baseman Wilton Veras's two-run, opposite-field home run off Giron in the third inning was enough to back up Lin for the night.
The loss was Giron's fourth of the season (7-4).
Cobras 2, Whales 1
Right fielder Yang Rei-chih brought in the first run in the top of the third inning on Saturday when he lined a shot to deep-left, putting the Cobras ahead 1-0.
In the bottom of the fifth, Whales second baseman Chiou Chi-pin evened things up with an RBI groundout to third off Cobras starter Lin En-yu.
The Whales could have tagged on at least another run with their two-on, and no-out start in the fifth, but poor base running coupled with a fine defensive throw by Cobras Hsu Sheng-jeh that gunned down a runner at third base, kept the Whales from turning it into a big inning.
Veras led off the seventh inning with his second homer in as many games. The solo shot off Whales starter Wang Guo-jing gave the serpents a 2-1 lead that they would not relinquish.
Pocketing the win for the victorious Cobras was Lin, who tossed seven frames of four-hit ball before reliever Rene Miniel preserved the win with a scoreless eighth and ninth.
Wang allowed seven hits over 6-1/3 innings in the loss.
Elephants 3, Lions 2
The Brother Elephants edged out the President Lions 2-1 in their three-game series last week after an impressive 3-2 win over the big cats in Kaohsiung on Sunday.
Following their 6-0 shutout of the Lions in Tainan on Friday that gave veteran pitcher Jonathan Hurst his sixth win of the season to even the series at one game apiece, the Elephants took advantage of two costly throwing errors by the Lions that scored three runs on a would-be one-run play.
With runners on first and second, Elephants second baseman Fong Sheng-shien drove a high pitch from Lions starter Julio Manon to left on a clean single for the first run on the play.
A poor relay throw allowed the runner on first to score the Elephants' second run before another poor throw to the plate then sent home Fong to complete the rare three-run sequence.
Although the Lions would cut the Elephants' lead to 3-2 with a run scored in the seventh on pinch hitter Kuo Dai-chi's RBI single off Elephants starter Muto Jun Ichiro, and threaten again in the ninth against closer Wu Bao-hong in a one-out, with two-on situation, pinch hitter Tseng Yang-chih then bounced a hard grounder to second, stopping the Lions comeback in a hurry on a game-ending double play.
Falling victim to the rare three-run play, Manon (0-2) remained winless for the year with the loss, while his counterpart Muto snapped up the win in a game where their fortune could have easily been reversed.
Japan’s Shohei Ohtani is the record-breaking baseball “superhuman” following in the footsteps of the legendary Babe Ruth who has also earned comparisons to US sporting greats Michael Jordan and Tom Brady. Not since Ruth a century ago has there been a baseball player capable of both pitching and hitting at the top level. The 30-year-old’s performances with the Los Angeles Dodgers have consolidated his position as a baseball legend in the making, and a national icon in his native Japan. He continues to find new ways to amaze, this year becoming the first player to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases
Zhang Shuai yesterday said that she nearly quit after losing 24 matches in a row — now the world No. 595 is into the quarter-finals of her home China Open. The 35-year-old is to face Spain’s Paula Badosa as the lowest-ranked player to reach this stage in the history of the tournament after Badosa reeled off 11 of the last 12 games in a 6-4, 6-0 victory over US Open finalist Jessica Pegula. Zhang went into Beijing on a barren run lasting more than 600 days and her string of singles defeats was the second-longest on the WTA Tour Open era, which
Taiwan’s Tony Wu yesterday beat Mackenzie McDonald of the US to win the Nonthaburi Challenger IV in Thailand, his first challenger victory since 2022. The 26-year-old world No. 315, who won both his qualifiers to advance to the main draw, has been on a hot streak this month, winning his past nine matches, including two that ensured Taiwan’s victory in their Davis Cup World Group I tie. Wu took just more than two hours to top world No. 172 McDonald 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) to win his second challenger tournament since the Tallahassee Tennis Challenger in 2022. Wu’s Tallahassee win followed two years of
Taiwanese martial artists bagged one gold, four silver and three bronze medals at the World Junior Wushu Championships in Brunei, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Brunei Darussalam said yesterday. Liu Yu-tzu won the gold medal in the girl’s taijiquan A group and also picked up a silver medal in the girl’s taijijian A group. Hu Hsin-ling, Yu Min-hsun and Chen Chao-hsiang each won a silver medal in the girl’s jianshu B, boy’s nangun B and boy’s taijijian A groups respectively. Hu also won a bronze medal in the girl’s qiangshu B group, while Yu and Lin Shih-hung picked up bronze medals
RSS