The Lamigo Monkeys proved no match for Japan’s Yomiuri Giants in the title game of this year’s Asia Series as they dropped a 6-3 decision to the Japanese at the Sajik Baseball Stadium in Busan, South Korea, yesterday afternoon.
Starter Paul Phillips struggled from the get go, issuing a leadoff walk to the Giants’ Shinnosuke Abe in the top of the second and allowing back-to-back doubles to the next two batters to fall behind by two before serving up a two-run homer to Kazunari Sanematsu to find himself down 0-4.
The Primates threatened to score in the bottom of the same inning by loading up the bases with one out against Ryosuke Miyaguni on a single and a pair of walks. However, the Yomiuri starter managed to escape unharmed by getting the next two Monkeys to line out and ground out to strand the runners.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
The Primates finally broke through in the fourth against Miyaguni when Lin Chih-sheng led off the bottom of the fourth with a solo blast to left to cut the Giant lead to three. However, that was as close as the champs from Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League would get as the Giants added to their lead with a run apiece in the sixth and the seventh that made it 6-1.
Trailing by five, the Monkeys mustered one final offensive in the bottom of the ninth with two runs off Giants closer Kentaro Nishimura on the strength of Yu The-long’s two-run single. However, it did not prevent the Giants from claiming their first and Japan’s fifth title in the six Asia Series played thus far.
Miyaguni was credited with the win for allowing a run on four hits over six innings of play to beat his counterpart Phillips who lasted only 1-2/3 innings before being pulled. The normal closer for the Monkeys looked uncomfortable with four allowed runs on three hits in an unfamiliar starting role.
With the victory, the Giants took home not only the top honor in Asian Baseball, but NT$13,000,000 (US$48,000) in prize money while the Monkeys won NT$8,000,000 as runnesr-up.
When Paddy Dwyer arrived in China in 1976, crowds jostled to catch a glimpse of him and his companions — the first Western soccer team to play in the country. China was emerging from the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, and on the brink of market reforms that would take the country from economic stagnation to explosive growth. “All we could see was lines of people running beside our bus, trying to look in the windows, to see their first visual of a white person,” he said. “It was all bicycles,” he said. “There were very few cars to be seen.” Dwyer,
Jannik Sinner continued his quest to become the first man in history to win five Masters 1000 tournaments in a row with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Danish qualifier Elmer Moller at the Madrid Open on Sunday. The world leader extended his winning streak to 19 matches, a run that began early March in Indian Wells, and he has captured 24 consecutive victories at the Masters 1000 level, dating back to the Paris Masters last October. Searching for a maiden title at this level on clay, Sinner advanced to the round of 16 at the Caja Magica with a 77-minute performance against
Some of Clearlake Capital Group’s largest investors are growing increasingly concerned about how much time the company’s co-founders are spending on sports investments as they have struggled to complete the fundraising for the private equity firm’s latest flagship fund. One of Clearlake’s co-founders, Behdad Eghbali, has been spending what some investors described as a disproportionate amount of time on the firm’s investment in Chelsea Football Club in recent months. Now, co-founder Jose E. Feliciano and his wife, Kwanza Jones, are nearing a record US$3.9 billion deal to acquire the San Diego Padres. That personal investment by Feliciano has set off the latest
A new NZ$683 million (US$404 million) stadium that was a symbol of Christchurch’s struggle to rebuild after a deadly earthquake struck the New Zealand city is to host its first match tomorrow in front of a sellout crowd. A magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed 185 people in February 2011 and toppled or damaged buildings, including the city’s old Lancaster Park. The stadium, which hosted international rugby and cricket, and was home to the Canterbury Crusaders, was badly damaged and never reopened. It was bulldozed in 2019 and turned into sports fields, leaving the Crusaders without a permanent home. Government funding for a new stadium was
RSS