Pan "Du Du" Wei-luen pitched five innings of two-run ball and Tilson Brito drove in a pair of runs with his league-best 19th homer of the year to lead the President Lions past the La New Bears in a 9-2 road victory in Kaohsiung on Tuesday night.
Pan, the staff ace for the Lions has won 10 straight after starting off the season with a 0-2 mark to lead the league in total victories, tying the Lions club record for consecutive wins set by former starter Kuo Jin-hsing in 1996. Du Du is now one win shy of the all-time league record for consecutive victories (11) that was set by former Weichuan Dragon player Kuo Yuan-chih in 1998.
Offensively for the visiting cats, Brito celebrated winning the Offensive Player of the Month award last month with his second homer in as many games this month to break the MVP jinx that has spread around the league.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
The contest between the two powerhouses of the South saw the Lions striking first against Bears starter Randy Leek of the US with three quick runs in the top of the second on a run-scoring throwing error by the Bears defense and a two-run single by Yang Dong-yi.
The Bears would close the gap to within two in the bottom of the same inning with Tseng Hao-jui's solo blast to deep-left off Du Du in a 3-1 affair before the Lions tacked on another run in the top of the third on the strength of Kao Chih-kang's RBI single.
Brito's thunderous swing that drove the ball out of the ballpark in a hurry in the fourth promptly made it 6-1 in favor of the Lions before they added three more runs to the lead to put the game away long before the final out.
Chen Chin-fong's solo shot to right-center leading off the bottom of the fourth in a 6-1 game was as close as the Bears could get against the stellar pitching of Pan before bullpen standouts Lin Cheng-fong and Yen Chuen-hao combined for four shutout innings to keep the potent Bears attack at bay for the rest of the game.
Picking up the loss was Leek who remained winless at 0-3 in his three starts with the Bears since joining the team in the middle of last month. He allowed six runs (three earned) on seven hits over four innings while fanning one and walking three.
Failure to come up with timely hits cost the Bears the game as the eight hits and six walks they collected off the Lions pitchers only led to two meager runs, both from solo homers, on the night.
Elephants 16, Bulls 5
Five first-inning runs, all coming with two quick outs, got the Brother Elephants off to a great start as they rolled over the Sinon Bulls in a 16-5 rout in Hsinchu on Tuesday to start the week in grand style.
After the Bulls struck for three runs in the top of the third to make it 5-3, the Elephants would string together five singles in the bottom of the same inning to plate five more runs that had starter Alfredo Gonzalez blowing the game wide open at 10-3.
The Elephants would put four more runs on the board in the fifth and sixth, highlighted by game-MVP Lin Ming-shien's two-run single on a four-RBI night, to lead by 11 before settling for the eventual 16-5 final.
Brother starter Liao Yu-cheng won his second game of the year with six-and-two-thirds innings of decent work, allowing five runs (only one earned) on 11 hits while punching out four and walking two.
He received plenty of run support in the game as the Elephants lineup erupted for 16 runs on as many hits to overwhelm a struggling Sinon club that had lost five of their past six.
Gonzalez was credited with the loss in his shortest start of the season as he dropped to a 4-5 mark for giving up eight runs on nine hits.
‘DEVASTATED’: Argentina’s win was a reversal of their 28-24 defeat last week, with Australian forward Fraser McReight adding that ‘we did the same thing last week’ Argentina flyhalf Santiago Carreras punished an undisciplined Australia with 23 points off the tee as the Pumas held on grimly for a 28-26 win in Sydney yesterday to breathe new life into their Rugby Championship campaign. A try-fest beckoned in afternoon sunshine at Sydney Football Stadium, but Argentina needed only one through captain Julian Montoya, with Carreras doing the damage with seven penalties and a conversion in front of a sell-out crowd. A week after letting a 14-point lead slip in a 28-24 defeat to Australia in Townsville, Argentina saw most of a 21-point advantage erased in the final quarter as the
ELEVEN STRIKEOUTS: Blake Snell allowed two singles and two walks against the Rockies as he ended a personal three-game skid with his first win since Aug. 16 Blake Snell on Wednesday struck out a season-high 11 in six innings, while Mookie Betts hit a grand slam in the eighth as the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Colorado Rockies 9-0 for their fourth straight win. Helped by their third series sweep of the Rockies this MLB season, the Dodgers increased their National League West lead to three games over the San Diego Padres, who lost 2-1 at home to the Cincinnati Reds. Betts went four for five with five RBIs, capped by his seventh career slam on a 3-0 pitch from reliever Anthony Molina to make it 8-0. Andy Pages and
Captain Vijay Kumar led the way yesterday as the Hsinchu Titans claimed the Taiwan Premier League title at the Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山), beating PCCT by 27 runs. The weather was a topic again, but not the rain that played a role in previous matches in the often-delayed tournament. Kumar, who made 80 not out from 63 deliveries, and teammate Vishwajit Kumar (58 from 43) rescued the Titans from a precarious state at the end of the power play in the T20 match. The visitors were put in to bat and struggled to 26-3 as PCCT
China’s state-run People’s Daily newspaper on Monday published an essay about Chinese basketball it said was written by LeBron James, but a representative for the NBA star said on Thursday that the article was based on a series of interviews. The paper, better known as the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, had said James authored the essay, “Basketball is a Bridge that Connects Us,” a tribute to Chinese players and fans of the sport written in the first person. “LeBron James Pens an Article in the People’s Daily,” read a post published on the newspaper’s official WeChat account. On Thursday, a representative
RSS