Chen Chin-fong’s bouncer over a drawn-in third baseman scored the go-ahead run in the top of the tenth and the La New Bears went on to beat the dmedia T-Rex 6-5 at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tienmu on Saturday night for their fifth straight victory.
Game-MVP Shih Chih-wei led off the inning with a clean double off dmedia reliever Lai Jung-nan and advanced to third on a fielding error on the same play to put himself in position for the game-winner.
The win avoided what would have been an embarrassing situation for the Bears as they blew a three-run lead late in the game, the last of which came on a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the eighth to force in the tying run.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUN, TAIPEI TIMES
Chen’s RBI-groundout gave the visiting Bears an early 1-0 lead in the opening frame before the contest turned into a pitchers’ duel through the fifth between the Bears’ Andrew Loraine of the US and fellow countryman Cory Bailey for the T-Rex.
A hibernating Bears offense would finally wake up in the top of the sixth with three-runs off Bailey, highlighted by Tseng Hao-jui’s two-run double to give his club a 4-0 advantage.
The lead lasted less than an inning as the T-Rex answered with two runs of their own in the bottom of the same inning on Hsieh “the Ugly” Jia-shien’s two-run blast to half the Bears lead at 4-2.
It was Hsieh’s 100th homer in the league (not including the 75 that he hit over five seasons in the former Taiwan Major League).
Huang “Easy” Long-yi’s one-run single in the seventh promptly upped the Bears lead to three runs in a 5-2 affair before the T-Rex loaded up the bases and scored twice on a sacrifice fly and a wild pitch by Bears reliever Huang Chin-chih to fall within a run.
Jermaine Van Buren was credited with the win for his 2-2/3 innings of scoreless relief even though he walked four and blew a save opportunity in the eighth to allow the T-Rex back in the game.
Tagged with the loss was his counterpart Lai for serving up the game-winner in the tenth.
Elephants 4 Whales 1
The Brother Elephants top the Chinatrust Whales by a 4-1 margin at the Hsinchu Municipal Baseball Stadium on Saturday to sweep the two-game series.
Danny Core pitched seven brilliant innings of one-run ball with five scattered singles to pick up his fourth win of the year.
Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min and newcomer Carlos Rivera of Puerto Rico led the Elephants attack by going a combined 5-for-7 on the night.
Chen Rei-chen’s sacrifice fly followed by Chen Rei-chang’s RBI double broke a scoreless tie in the top of the fourth for the Elephants as they took a 2-0 lead over the Whales.
That was more than ample for Core as he allowed the lone Whales run in the fifth before his offense tacked on two more insurance runs in the eighth in the eventual 4-1 final.
Suffering the tough loss for the Whales was starter Du Chang-wei who allowed four runs (only two earned) on nine hits over 7-1/3 innings of work for his fifth setback of the season.
The Whales righty set a new league mark for consecutive losses with a dozen straight dating all the back to last season.
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
RSS