Mickey Callaway tossed five shutout innings of four-hit ball and Kuo Dai-chi went deep with a monstrous three-run homer as the Uni-President Lions defeated the Brother Elephants 10-7 in Tainan on Sunday night to clinch the first-half title of the Chinese Professional Baseball League.
The American righty, who moved to the Lions with only one mission in mind — defending their title for an impressive “three-peat” kept the Elephants’ bats quiet through the first five frames.
That was more than ample for the Lions hitters to do what they do best, as they struck for a pair of runs in the first and third inning for a quick 4-0 lead, before taking a 10-run lead in a six-run fourth inning.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
Even though the Elephants would finally get on the board in the sixth inning with a run and then six more unanswered runs, including a big five-run eighth inning, to get to within three of the Lions, the outcome of the contest was never in doubt.
Ace closer Lin Yueh-ping recorded the final four outs to preserve the win for Callaway.
Taking the loss for the Elephants was starter Yeh Ding-ren, who allowed five runs on three hits and nine walks over three-and-a-third wild innings. The third-year lefty remained winless for the year at 0-3.
BULLS 13, BEARS 5
Shaky pitching on the part of the La New Bears, coupled with four costly errors in defense, cost the Bears the game against the Sinon Bulls in Kaohsiung on Sunday.
Trailing the Lions by half a game entering Sunday’s contest, the Bears needed to win and hope for a Lions loss in order to win the first-half title, but it was not to be as they fell short by some way.
Starter Hsu Wen-hsiung managed to last just one-and-a-third innings, while reliever Tsai Ying-fong didn’t fare much better in the two innings he pitched as they allowed five runs apiece to fall to a 2-10 deficit through the fourth.
With the big lead, Sinon starter Shoda Itsuki cruised through the sixth, pitching two-run ball before the bullpen took over.
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
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
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
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
RSS