Chen Jien-wei's two-out single to shallow-right with runner on second drove in the game-winner in the top of the 12th inning to lift the Chinatrust Whales past the President Lions in a 9-8 final in Tainan on Saturday evening.
After 11 innings of play that lasted nearly five hours, the veteran Whales slugger came up with the hit needed to put his team ahead.
The Whales bullpen then with reliever Kevin Tolar retiring the side in order in the bottom of the 12th for his first victory of the season.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
Tilson Brito's two-run shot off Whales starter Nee Fu-deh, quickly gave the home Lions a 2-0 advantage in the bottom of the first.
But the lead would last less than an inning as the marine creatures evened things up in the top of the second with two runs before tallying four more in the third on a couple of run-scoring errors by the Lions defense and Kuo Dai-yong's two-run single up the middle to make it 6-2.
Two more Whales runs in the fifth on sacrifice-flies by Kuo and Cheng Chang-ming off Lions starter Wayne Franklin gave them a seemingly comfortable 8-2 lead.
But that was when the Lions put on their rally caps and plated six unanswered runs over the next three innings to force an 8-all tie by the end of the seventh.
Three straight singles followed by Shih Jin-dien's pinch-hit double capped a three-run rally in the seventh to humble a somewhat overconfident Whales pitching crew.
Thanks to Chen's extra-innings magic, the Whales avoided what would have been an embarrassing loss after their bullpen wasted a six-run lead to send the contest into extra innings.
Picking up the loss for the Lions was Tsao Jung-yang, who survived a bases-loaded jam in the 11th with a huge strikeout and an inning-ending pick-off play at second. However, he finally ran out of luck in the 12th against Chen.
Bulls 5, Cobras 4
Four extra-base hits in a row, highlighted by Hsu Guo-long's two-run home run in the bottom of the seventh, rallied the Sinon Bulls from a 0-4 deficit to top the Macoto Cobras by a 5-4 margin in Taichung on Saturday night.
Yu Hsien-ming's RBI-double off Cobras starter Jeremy Hill with two outs in the bottom of the seventh got the Bulls on the board before Cheng Jau-han and Wu Bo-hong ripped two more run-scoring hits off Hill to chase the Cobras right-hander in a 4-3 affair.
In came Cobras reliever Chang Hsien-chih, who served up Hsu's homer with a man on second to complete the five-run seventh.
Hsieh "the Ugly" Jia-shien's run-scoring double in the opening frame put the serpents ahead 1-0 before they pushed two more runs across in the fifth on Wang Chuan-jia's bases-loaded walk and a sacrifice fly by the Ugly.
Yu Wen-pin's wild pitch with the bags juiced in the sixth spotted the Cobras their fourth run of the game and a 4-0 lead, setting the table for the Bulls' game-turning, five-run seventh.
Yu Wen-pin was credited with the win to improve to 2-2 for the year despite throwing two wild pitches in relief, beating his counterpart Chang, who fell to a 5-4 mark with the loss.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
RSS