Taiwanese pitcher Chen Wei-yin on Tuesday had a no-hitter working through seven innings when he was lifted from the Marlins’ 5-0 Major League Baseball victory over the Mariners in Seattle.
Chen was in total control, throwing 64 of his 100 pitches for strikes and flummoxing the Mariners hitters with his curveball and changeup.
He had allowed no hits with two strikeouts and two walks when Marlins manager Don Mattingly replaced him on the mound in the eighth inning with Brad Ziegler, who pitched a perfect eighth.
Photo: AP
The Mariners’ Mitch Haniger broke up the Marlins’ combined no-hitter bid with one out in the bottom of the ninth with a double to right center off closing pitcher Kyle Barraclough.
“Wei-yin was good all night,” Mattingly said. “He just kind of kept them at bay, changing speeds on both sides of the plate.”
It was the second time in three days that the Marlins carried a no-hitter into the late innings. On Sunday, they were four outs away from a combined no-hitter against the New York Mets.
Chen’s outing was the longest by a Marlins starter this season. None of the team’s other starters has recorded an out in the seventh inning, and Mattingly had no regrets about pulling him and denying him a chance to go for a complete no-hitter.
“This guy had a [ligament] tear last year, and he’s coming back,” Mattingly said. “He’s been healthy, but I’m not going to let him go to 130 [pitches].”
After Chen walked one batter and hit another in the seventh, Mattingly said he had seen enough.
“We knew his location was leaving him, and in our minds, he’s got no chance to make nine innings at that point,” Mattingly said.
Nevertheless, the nearest the Mariners came to getting a hit off Chen was in the fifth inning, when Taylor Motter seized upon a low fastball, belting it to center field where Christian Yelich made the catch a few feet from the wall.
Yelich’s single in the first inning had scored Dee Gordon, who led off the game with a double, as the Marlins put up four runs in the first three innings.
Tuesday’s stellar performance continues what is becoming a banner season for Chen.
On April 7, his long wait for his first Major League Baseball hit ended when he singled in his 52nd big league at-bat.
Chen’s zero-for-51 hitless streak, which covered 57 plate appearances, was the fourth-longest such run to start a career among players who have debuted since 1900, the Elias Sports Bureau said.
Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying on Saturday crashed out of the BWF All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, with South Korea’s Se Young-an denying the world No. 3 Tai a chance at a fourth All England title. In a replay of their semi-final showdown last year, the world No. 2 Se again beat Tai, saving four match points in a thrilling deciding game to prevail 17-21, 21-19, 24-22. Tai won the women’s singles title in Birmingham in 2017, 2018 and 2020. In the three times the two superstars faced each other prior to Saturday, Tai, 22, had only come out on top once, when
California-born Lars Nootbaar had never played for Japan before the World Baseball Classic, but he has become so popular in his adopted country that sales of pepper mills have shot up in tribute to his trademark celebration. The 25-year-old outfielder — the first player born outside Japan to represent the country at the tournament — mimics twisting a pepper mill after each hit to show he wants to “grind out” a win for his team. The celebration has become a smash hit during Japan’s games in Tokyo, with Nootbaar’s teammates jumping on the bandwagon and fans bringing pepper grinders to the stadium. Nootbaar
LAST ONE STANDING: The world No. 3 was the only Taiwanese left in the tournament, while there were upsets in the men’s singles and the women’s doubles Taiwanese badminton ace Tai Tzu-ying on Thursday defeated Thailand’s Busanan Ongbamrungphan 21-19, 21-12 to reach the quarter-finals of the BWF All England Open in Birmingham. Tai, the world No. 3, needed only 40 minutes to close out the round-of-16 matchup at the Utilita Arena. In the opening game, the Taiwanese shuttler established an early 10-5 cushion, before an aggressive Ongbamrungphan fought her way back into the tie, winning nine straight points to take a 10-14 lead. The pair traded the lead to bring the scores to 18-19, but Tai held her nerve to close out the first game. After a 2-2 tie early in
When Taiwan lost to Cuba 7-1 at the World Baseball Classic (WBC) on Sunday, it was an opportunity missed. A win would have sent the team to the quarter-finals in Tokyo. Instead, the loss gave Taiwan a 2-2 record, the same as the other four teams in Pool A, but they finished last because of tiebreakers. So, was the team’s performance a success or a failure? The 2-2 record would suggest somewhere in between, but two baseball experts, National Taiwan Sport University (NTSU) associate professor Kung Jung-tang and veteran commentator Tseng Wen-cheng, gave Taiwan’s WBC performance a resounding thumbs-up. “The team’s offensive showing was