Home runs raced through the Kaohsiung sky in a high-scoring match between the President Lions and the La New Bears on Thursday evening when the Lions outslugged the Bears by a 13-7 margin for their sixth win in the past seven games.
Tilson Brito's two-run blast in the top of the eighth, his league-leading 28th of the season, led a three-homer outburst by the visiting Lions, while the Bears' Chen Chin-fong hit his 19th and 20th of the year in his second multi-homer game of the season for a total of five home runs in the game.
The highly anticipated battle between the league's top two starters -- Brian Reith of the Lions and Gary Rath of the Bears -- did not live up to its billing as Rath let the Lions bats get to him in the early going with a single and two doubles on top of a pair of walks for four second-inning runs to fall behind 0-4.
Even though the Bears would score a run of their own in the bottom of the second when Chen smashed an offering from Reith over the centerfield wall for a solo homer, the Lions would top that with Kao Guo-ching's solo blast off Rath that chased the American right-hander before striking for three more runs in the fifth to blow the game wide open.
Wild pitches by Bears reliever Hsu Wen-hsiung with the bases loaded plated two runs for the Lions in the fifth before Huang Gang-lin's double drove in the third run of the inning, which helped the Lions build up a commanding 8-1 lead after five innings of the game.
They would tack on five more runs in the final two innings after Chen took Reith deep again for his second solo shot of the game to lead it 13-2.
Trailing by 11, the Bears rallied for five unearned runs in the bottom of the ninth to make it more respectable, though it was too little too late for them as they dropped the disappointing game at the hands of the Lions.
Picking up the win for the Lions with seven brilliant innings of work was Reith, who allowed two runs on four hits (both solo homers to Chen) for his seventh straight win. He remained undefeated at 7-0 since joining the Lions early last month.
Offensively for the Lions, all nine starters pocketed at least one hit on the night with Liu Fu-hao batting three-for-four to lead the way. Huang Gang-lin and Kao Chih-kang also had multi-hit games with three RBIs each to account for nearly half of their team's total runs.
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
Taiwan suffered its first defeat of the 2024 World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Premier12, losing to defending champion Japan 3-1 at the Taipei Dome last night. Japan’s victory put Taiwan’s score at two wins and one loss in WBSC Premier12 championship Group B play. In the top of the first inning, a sacrifice fly from Japanese batter Shota Morishita allowed Masayuki Kuwahara to score a run on Taiwan’s starter Chen Po-ching (陳柏清). Taiwan’s attempt to catch up in the bottom of the first ended to no avail and an uneventful second inning saw the score
A debate over the soul of soccer is raging in FIFA World Cup holders Argentina, pitting defenders of the social role of the beautiful game against the government of libertarian Argentine President Javier Milei, who wants to turn clubs into for-profit companies. Argentina, which gave the world Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, is home to some of the world’s most devoted soccer fans — a fact attributed by supporters like Gabriel Nicosia to the clubs’ community outreach. Nicosia is a lifelong supporter of San Lorenzo, a more than 100-year-old first division club based in the working-class Buenos Aires neighborhood of Boedo where
Cristiano Ronaldo scored a penalty and an overhead kick on Friday as Portugal beat Poland 5-1 to guarantee a place in the UEFA Nations League quarter-finals. Ronaldo turned in a man-of-the-match performance in a blistering second half. Rafael Leao broke the deadlock with a fine header 14 minutes into the second half and then Ronaldo got his 134th international goal from the penalty spot 13 minutes later. Bruno Fernandes scored a stunning third from almost 30m out and three minutes later Ronaldo’s pass gave Pedro Neto the space to lash home a fourth from a tight angle. Ronaldo made it five — and 135
RSS