Starter Yang Jien-fu's (陽建福) six shutout innings, coupled with relievers Osvaldo Martinez and Melquiades Rojas' three combined frames of stellar relief, propelled the second-place Sinon Bulls past the league-leading President Lions in a 2-0 triumph in Tainan on Saturday.
The win not only salvaged a 2-2 series split for the Bulls, it kept the heat on the Lions in their quest to win the second half for the automatic 1-0 lead in the upcoming Championship Series.
Slugger Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan's (張泰山) towering solo shot over the right-center fence broke a scoreless tie in the top of the fourth and gave the winner of the 2003 Most Valuable Player award 20 homers for the season to lead the league. Chang also holds huge leads over the next best hitter in total RBIs with 84 (59) and game-winning hits with 15 (9), making him a strong contender to repeat as the league's MVP for this year.
The Bulls' 2-0 shutout victory avenged their 4-0 loss on Friday at the hands of Lion second-year man Pan "Du Du" Wei-luen (
Offensively for the Lions, second baseman Yang Tung-yi (
Foreign veteran pitchers came through for the Brother Elephants in their three-game series against the Macoto Cobras as the defending champs took two out of three to remain within three games of the Lions.
After dropping Thursday's series opener by a whopping 6-0 final, the Elephants called on Japanese starter Nakagomi Sin to the mound in Game 2 on Friday in search for the series equalizer. The 34-year-old former Hanshin Tiger of the Nippon Professional Baseball League promptly responded by blanking the serpents in eight magnificent innings for his 12th win of the year. Sin's dominance off the mound made things quite easy for the Elephant lineup, which managed to squeeze a pair of runs off Cobra newcomer Michael Lyons on a two-run double by short stop Chen Rei-cheng (陳瑞振) in the 2-0 final. The American righty has been brilliant in all three of his starts (ERA of 1.157), but remains winless (0-2) thus far as his mates have managed to provide only one run on offense in the 20-plus innings that he has pitched.
The Cobras made things interesting by taking a brief 3-2 lead in Sunday's series finale at Tienmu on cleanup man Hsieh Jia-shien's (謝佳賢) two-run dinger off Elephant starter Jonathan Hurst in the top of the third, but Elephant catcher Chen Rei-chang's (陳瑞昌) two-run double in the bottom of the same inning would quickly reverse the Cobras' fortune and put the Elephants up for good in the 7-3 decision.
Hurst upped to his league-leading victory total to 16 with another gutsy performance, despite experiencing some obvious discomfort in his back which limited the veteran to just five innings of work for the game.
The La New Bears successfully defended their home turf by taking the deciding Game 3 of their three-game home stand against the Chinatrust Whales behind another strong effort by rookie lefty Wu Si-yo (
Wu bounced back from his first loss in over a month by recording his first career complete-game shutout in the 4-0 Bear victory. He held the Whale lineup to four hits while fanning ten, another personal-best for the young and upcoming star.
The US’ bid for a fourth consecutive CONCACAF Nations League title came to a stunning end as they fell 1-0 to Panama after a stoppage-time goal from Cecilio Waterman on Thursday in Inglewood, California. Despite dominating possession, the US struggled to break down a resilient Panama side for long periods. Panama spent the bulk of the match defending, but pounced on a giveaway by the US before substitute forward Waterman sent a shot from the right side of the area to the bottom left corner late in stoppage time. Up next for Panama in tomorrow’s final is to be Mexico, who beat
DOMINATION: McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris took the first two spots as Mercedes’ George Russell and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen followed them Australian Oscar Piastri yesterday roared back from season-opening disappointment in his home race by winning the Formula One Chinese Grand Prix from pole position in a McLaren one-two with championship-leading teammate Lando Norris. George Russell finished third for Mercedes, ahead of Red Bull’s reigning champion Max Verstappen with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Saturday’s sprint winner Lewis Hamilton fifth and sixth respectively. Piastri’s win denied Norris a third victory in a row, including last year’s Abu Dhabi season-ender, but left champions McLaren unbeaten in two races so far this year. “Mega job guys. The car was very, very lovely,” Piastri said
TO FINAL FOUR: France had 22 chances and scored two goals, while Croatia could not manage a single shot on target in 120 minutes. Les Bleus won 5-4 on penalties France on Sunday overturned a two-goal deficit to qualify for the UEFA Nations League Final Four by eliminating Croatia 5-4 on penalties after a 2-0 victory in their quarter-final second leg at the Stade de France. Dayot Upamecano scored the winning spot kick in a nail-biting shootout in which France keeper Mike Maignan made two saves, sending Les Bleus into the semi-finals against Spain. Michael Olise opened the scoring and Ousmane Dembele doubled their lead 10 minutes from time to send the tie into extra time after their 2-0 loss in Split, Croatia, on Thursday. France had a total of
Armand Duplantis will be among the reigning Olympic champions adding star power to the world indoor championships this weekend when the Chinese city of Nanjing hosts the first major global athletics meet since the Paris Games last year. The three-day event was originally slated for 2020 and faced multiple postponements due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Nanjing’s Sports Training Center would finally welcome more than 570 athletes for the start of the showpiece today. One of the main attractions would be pole vaulter “Mondo” Duplantis, who soared 6.27m to break the world record for a staggering 11th time in Clermont-Ferrand last
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