Cory Bailey pitched eight brilliant innings of shutout ball and Huang Shih-wei went a perfect 3-for-3 with the game’s only RBI to help the dmedia T-Rex blank the La New Bears 1-0 at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Thursday night.
The US right-hander, who returned to Taiwan in a T-Rex uniform this year after spending nearly two seasons with the Bears in 2004-2005, showed no mercy against his former club by scattering four singles and fanning a season-high six over eight frames before closer Lee Ming-jin retired the side in order in a perfect ninth to keep the hard-earned shutout victory intact.
“There is really no margin for error in a close game like this one,” Bailey said after the game.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
He received just enough run support from the dmedia offense, which managed to produce a run on the eight hits it registered to eke out a big win.
A two-out blooper to left by Huang that was scored a single in the sixth with runners at the corners turned out to be the deciding point in the game as the runner from third strolled in for the game-winner.
Shabby lighting might have been the culprit, as La New leftfielder Chung Cheng-yo seemed to have lost the ball in the lights momentarily, preventing him from coming up with what would have been an inning-ending and perhaps game-saving catch.
Even though La New skipper Hong Yi-chung would be the first to defend his rookie outfielder, the play nonetheless cost the Bears the game.
With the win, Bailey improved to 3-0 for the season with a 1.41 ERA.
As for the hard-luck Bears, Bailey’s fellow countryman Andrew Loraine was charged with the loss despite tossing six strong innings of one-run ball on seven hits as he dropped to 2-4 for the year.
Bulls 5, Whales 1
Knocking in four of his team’s five runs, Cheng Dai-hong singlehandedly helped the Sinon Bulls defeat the Chinatrust Whales 5-1 at the Ilan County Baseball Stadium in Luodong on Thursday to avenge a bitter 4-5 loss to the marine creatures in extra innings the night before.
Cheng’s bases-clearing two-run triple jumpstarted the Bulls offense in a three-run first as they wasted little time getting to Whales starter Steve Watkins of the US.
Trailing 0-3, the Whales countered with a run of their own in the bottom of the same inning when Kuo Dai-yong led off the inning with a standup double and scored on Hsu Ren-jeh’s RBI-single on the ensuing play to make it 1-3.
That was all the scoring that the Whales could muster against the stingy pitching of Bulls starter Jose Espinal, who allowed only a run on six hits in as many innings before Tsai Ming-jin and Kuo Yong-chih combined for three innings of scoreless relief to preserve the win for Espinal.
Watkins suffered the tough loss for the Whales. He lasted six innings with five allowed runs on seven hits to fall below .500 with a record of 3-4.
NO HARD FEELINGS: Taiwan’s Lin Hsiang-ti and Indonesia’s Dhinda Amartya Pratiwi embraced after fighting to a tense and rare 30-29 final game in their Uber Cup match The Taiwanese men’s team on Wednesday fought back from the brink of elimination to defeat Denmark in Group C and advance to the quarter-finals of the Thomas Cup, while the women’s team were to face South Korea after press time last night in the Uber Cup quarter-finals in Horsens, Denmark. In the first match, Taiwan’s top shuttler Chou Tien-chen faced a familiar opponent in world No. 3 Anders Antonsen. It was their 16th head-to-head matchup, with the Dane taking his fourth victory in a row against former world No. 2 Chou, winning 21-14, 13-21, 21-15 in 1 hour, 22 minutes. The
Marta Kostyuk’s maiden WTA 1000 title in Madrid came on Saturday thanks to her power, poise and a pair of unexpected lucky shorts. The world No. 23 beat eighth-ranked Mirra Andreeva 6-3, 7-5 in under 90 minutes to secure the most prestigious trophy of her career, her third professional singles title and second in less than a month after Rouen. Yet as the 23-year-old Ukrainian posed for photographs at the Caja Magica, it was not just the silverware that caught the eye. Held alongside her team and her two dogs, Kostyuk showed off a piece of black men’s underwear, prompting
Throwing more than US$5 billion at a divisive new tour and walking away after five seasons does not look like good business, but LIV Golf was not all bad news for Saudi Arabia. Oil-funded LIV, which poached top stars and sent golf’s establishment into a tailspin, helped push the conservative kingdom into global view — one of its key aims, experts said. The exit, confirmed on Thursday after weeks of speculation, does not signal a flight of Saudi money from sport, even after the Middle East war that sparked Iranian attacks around the Gulf, they said. “Saudi Arabia is not
Kite-surfing fabrics, car tires and shortened shoelaces helped Kenyan Sabastian Sawe and Adidas crack the two-hour marathon barrier. When Sawe on Sunday shattered one of athletics’ most elusive barriers in storming to victory at the London Marathon in 1 hour, 59 minutes, 30 seconds, it did not come from just physiology and grit, but from design choices drawn from far beyond the course. Sawe debuted Adidas’ lightest-ever racing shoe, the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3. “It starts with the mentality of the athlete, the coach, and the team behind the product, which is: What can we do better? What is the 1 percent
RSS