Yang Seng's two-out single with a runner on third scored the go-ahead run in the top of the twelfth as the President Lions overcame a ninth-inning meltdown to win 11-10 against the Brother Elephants at the Kaohsiung County Baseball Stadium late on Tuesday night.
With his team leading 10-8 in the bottom of the ninth, reliever Shen Bo-chang allowed a bases-clearing, two-run double to the Elephants’ Chen Rei-chen. That breathed new life into the Elephants, before Yang ultimately bailed him out three innings later with a clutch hit that knocked in the game-winner.
The win not only avoided what would have been an embarrassing loss for the league-leaders and defending champions, but also kept them from losing two straight for the first time this season as they maintained a five-game cushion over the second-placed La New Bears.
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The classic seesaw battle began with the Elephants taking advantage of three rare errors by the Lions defense in the bottom of the first, by scoring three runs for a surprising 3-0 lead.
Then came a three-run homer by the Lions’ Yang Dong-yi that quickly brought his team back to 3-3 in the top of the fourth, before each team would trade two more runs over the next two innings to make it 5-5 after the sixth.
Chen Lien-hong’s two-out single with a man on second would put the Lions ahead 6-5 in the top of the seventh, only to see fellow relievers Kao Jien-san, Yen Chuen-hao and Tsai Shih-chin cough up three runs in the bottom of the same inning to give the Elephants an 8-6 lead.
It took a three-run blast by the Lions’ Kuo Dai-chi to cap a four-run eighth that helped them reclaim what was seemingly a safe 10-8 lead, before Chen’s timely double sent the game into the extra-innings in a dramatic ninth.
Picking up the win for the Lions in a game that saw a dozen pitchers used by the two teams was right-hander Yo, who entered the game in the eleventh and delivered two scoreless innings for his first victory of the season, while his counterpart Yeh Yong-jeh suffered the tough loss for allowing the winning-run, despite turning in three outstanding innings of one-hit relief.
Bears 12, T-Rex 3
The La New Bears feasted off a struggling dmedia pitching staff by dialing up 18 hits against their former Taiwan Major League brethren in a lopsided 12-3 trouncing at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Tuesday.
The win maintained their chase of the top-ranked Lions, who also won on Tuesday night.
Bears starter Hsu Wen-hsiung kept his unbeaten streak in Taipei County alive by tossing five-and-two-third innings of three-run ball on seven hits for his fourth win of the year in a game that saw the T-Rex send a season-high seven hurlers to the mound in a non-extra-inning contest.
Offensively for the rambunctious Bears, Huang “Easy” Long-yi’s four-for-five hitting with an RBI was worthy of a game-MVP selection, while Shih Chih-wei and Jiang Chih-tsong went a combined four-for-eight with three RBIs each to account for half of the run production on the night.
‘BOWLINE’ AND ‘ARCTOS’: Roy Quaden was hit on the head by a boom, while Nick Smith was struck by the main sheet and thrown across the boat amid rough seas Two sailors have been killed in separate incidents in the treacherous Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, officials said yesterday, as a string of yachts retired in powerful winds and high seas. One of the crew members, 55-year-old Roy Quaden on Flying Fish Arctos, was hit on the head by a boom as the fleet raced down the New South Wales coast, race organizers said. The other man, 65-year-old Nick Smith, was struck by the main sheet aboard Bowline and thrown across the boat, said David Jacobs, vice commodore of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia. “Unfortunately, he hit his head on the winch, and
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.
Novak Djokovic is confident he can still win Grand Slams, starting at the Australian Open, with the Serbian launching his bid for an unprecedented 11th title and record 25th major crown in Brisbane, Australia. Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka, who is gunning for a third Melbourne Park trophy, joins him at the Queensland Tennis Centre from Sunday to Jan. 5 in a stellar women’s field. The next season gets under way tomorrow with the mixed-teams United Cup in Perth and Sydney, headlined by world No. 2 Iga Swiatek in her first tournament since revelations that she served a one-month doping suspension. It
Liverpool on Thursday powered seven points clear at the top of the Premier League as the title favorites survived a scare in their 3-1 win against Leicester City, while Bruno Fernandes was sent off in Manchester United’s dismal 2-0 defeat against Wolverhampton Wanderers. Erling Haaland missed a penalty as crisis-torn Manchester City failed to end their dismal run with a 1-1 draw against Everton, but it was United’s travails and Liverpool’s remarkable run that took center-stage. Arne Slot’s side were shocked by Jordan Ayew’s early strike at Anfield, but the leaders recovered their composure to equalize just before the interval through Cody
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