Taiwanese pitcher Teng Kai-wei was on Saturday optioned to Triple-A by the Houston Astros after struggling in his start against the Detroit Tigers, allowing five runs — four earned — including a grand slam.
The grand slam was hit by Kerry Carpenter in the third inning before Teng was pulled in the bottom of the fourth. He allowed eight hits and one walk over 3 2/3 innings while striking out one batter.
A late comeback by Houston took the Taiwanese right-hander off the hook for what would have been his seventh loss this year, with the Astros beating the Tigers 8-6 on the latter’s home field.
Photo: Getty Images via AFP
During Saturday’s game, Teng also faced fellow Taiwanese player Lee Hao-yu twice. Lee singled in his first at-bat and flied out in his second. He later crushed a solo home run to right field off Astros reliever Steven Okert in the bottom of the fifth for his third homer of the season.
Following the poor outing, the Astros optioned Teng to Triple-A, with Miguel Ullola taking his place on the active roster.
Teng was the only Taiwanese player to make an Opening Day roster in MLB when this season began in March.
Before his demotion, he had a 4-6 record with a 4.36 ERA. He appeared in 23 games for the Astros this season, including 10 starts.
Teng later told Chandler Rome, a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Astros, that he was feeling some “fatigue and tiredness” compared with the start of the season.
“The past two seasons, I only pitched 70 to 80 innings a year, and this year it’s only halfway through the season, but I’m already approaching that inning count,” Teng said through an interpreter.
He has pitched 64 innings this year.
“There is some fatigue, but it’s still manageable,” Rome quoted Teng as saying.
IN GREAT COMPANY: If Lai makes it to the big leagues with the Yankees, he would be only the second Taiwanese to do so, following ace Wang Chien-ming Taiwanese right-handed pitcher Lai Chien-fan, 18, on Tuesday agreed to a minor league contract with the New York Yankees that includes an US$872,500 signing bonus. Lai, who throws fastballs in the 91-94mph (146-151kph) range, helped Taiwan win a bronze medal at the World Baseball Softball Confederation’s U-18 Baseball World Cup in September last year, striking out 14 over seven innings in three relief appearances. The 1.83m-tall Taitung City native, the highest-rated Taiwanese pitcher in the 2026 class, would be the third player in Yankees franchise history to be signed as a non-drafted free agent out of Taiwan, following in the footsteps of
TURKEY BEAT US: US coach Mauricio Pochettino was annoyed by suggestions that their defeat said anything negative about his team, who topped their group The field for the elimination phase of the FIFA World Cup is beginning to take shape, with cohosts the US and Canada finding out their opponents in the next round. The US face Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday next week in Santa Clara, California, getting to stay on the west coast after competing in the Los Angeles area and Seattle during the group stage. The US had already clinched a spot in the knockout round before a 3-2 loss to Turkey on Thursday in front of a raucous, celebrity-studded southern California crowd at Los Angeles Stadium in Inglewood. Canada are also to head
In a packed Shanghai sports bar, Chinese soccer fans erupted in frenzied delight as Japan’s Ayase Ueda looped a header over Tunisia’s goalkeeper to secure a 4-0 win in a FIFA World Cup group match. China is not the most obvious place for Japan fandom to thrive — the two countries’ historical animosity is never far from the surface and relations have been tense since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi took office in Tokyo last year. For the dozens of Chinese supporters in the bar on Sunday afternoon glued to Japan’s every move on massive screens, their love of the team has
It might just be the greatest job in the world, but for the two Americans being paid US$50,000 to watch every one of the 104 games of the FIFA World Cup over 39 days, it is a labor of love. Austin Franklin, 29, and Kevin Akoto, 26, perform their dream task in a temporary fishbowl studio with glass walls on three sides in the heart of Manhattan’s Times Square. Enthusiastic fans crowd around the cube to watch the games on two large TVs as Franklin and Akoto lounge on sofas inside. Akoto quit his job and broke up with his partner to take
RSS