The Sinon Bulls bent but would not break as they held off a tough rally by the La New Bears in the bottom of the ninth to win it 7-6 at the Kaohsiung County Baseball Stadium on Thursday night.
With his team leading 7-4, Sinon closer Kuo Yong-chih allowed back-to-back singles to start off the bottom of the ninth and actually surrendered two runs to the home Bears to make it 7-6 with no outs.
But he was able to regroup in a hurry and retire the next three batters in order on a fly out to deep-right and two strikeouts to preserve the win that ended a three-game losing skid for the Bulls.
PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YI
The contest began with the visiting Bulls getting four early runs off Bears starter Huang Jung-chung with a run in the first and three in the second, highlighted by Chang Jien-ming’s two-run double, to lead it 4-1.
The lead lasted less than two innings as the Bears fought back with two runs in the third on Chen Chin-fong’s two-run double off the leftfield wall to make it 4-3 before evening things up at 4-all in the fifth on Pan Chung-wei’s sacrifice-fly.
Two costly errors by the Bears defense on top of an RBI-single by Tseng Hua-wei gave the Bulls their second three-run lead in the game at 7-4 in the top of the sixth, a lead they would not relinquish despite the ninth-inning drama.
Picking up the win for the Bulls was reliever Jose Espinal of the Dominican Republic, who allowed a run on four hits over two innings of work for his first win of the season.
Suffering the loss for the Bears was lefty Hsu Yu-wei, who was charged with two of the three Bulls runs in the decisive sixth for his first setback of the year.
Lions 16, Whales 6
Scoring early and often, the President Lions trounced the Chinatrust Whales 16-6 to win their fourth in a row at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium on Thursday evening.
The league leaders teed off against the marine creatures by amassing 11 runs over the first three frames; four in the first, two in the second and five more in the third to take a commanding 11-0 lead.
The Whales finally got on the board in the top of the fourth when Carlos Villalobos hit his third home run of the season, a solo shot to deep-left off Lions starter Lin Yueh-pin to make it 11-1, only to see the home Lions counter with a run in the bottom of the same inning before tacking on four more in the sixth to conclude their offensive bash.
Trailing by a ton, the Whales scored five meaningless runs in the ninth to keep it somewhat respectable.
But that was too little too late as they suffered the sixth series sweep of the season by dropping both contests versus the Lions earlier this week.
Seven different Lions players had multi-hit games on the night, led by Pan Wu-hsiung’s 3-for-4 effort with an RBI. Tilson Brito also starred for the Lions by going 2-for-4 with six RBIs, producing 25 for the year.
Lin was credited with his fourth win of the season to remain unbeaten at 4-0 while his counterpart Steve Watkins pocked the loss for allowing six runs on five hits in just one-and-two-third innings to fall to an even 3-3 mark for the season.
Champagne corks often pop and loud, boisterous cheers are usually heard around Constitution Dock when the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race line honors winner finishes in the Tasmanian state capital. There were no such celebrations this year when the defending champions on board LawConnect won the race in the early hours of yesterday morning, as it came about 24 hours after two sailors died on separate boats in sail boom accidents two hours apart on a storm-ravaged first night of the race. LawConnect, a 100-foot super maxi skippered by Australian tech millionaire Christian Beck, sailed up the River Derwent at just after 2:30am.
Elena Rybakina’s Kazakhstan yesterday dumped defending champions Germany out of the United Cup with world No. 2 Alexander Zverev sidelined by an arm injury barely a week away from the Australian Open. The upset in Perth sent the Kazakhs into the semi-finals of the 18-nation tournament. In Sydney, women’s world No. 2 Iga Swiatek led Poland into the last eight by winning a rematch of her 2023 French Open final against Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic. Britain also progressed to the quarter-finals with Katie Boulter’s dominant 6-2, 6-1 victory over Australia’s Olivia Gadecki enough to guarantee they won their group. The US and
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Chess great Magnus Carlsen on Friday quit the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships in New York after governing body FIDE barred the Norwegian from participating in a round at the tournament for wearing jeans. FIDE said in a statement that its dress code regulations were designed to “ensure professionalism and fairness for all participants.” It issued Carlsen a US$200 fine and gave him an opportunity to change into the correct attire, which the world No. 1 rejected, it said. Carlsen said he had a lunch meeting before the round and had to change quickly. “I put on a shirt, jacket and honestly like
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