Clutch hitting on the part of the Brother Elephants, coupled with two devastating errors by the La New Bears defense, lifted the Elephants past the Bears in a 3-1 win at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium last night, giving the Elephants a clean sweep in the weekend series against their archrivals from Kaohsiung.
Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min’s two-out single after a fielding error by the Bears shortstop that allowed the runner to reach second put the Elephants ahead 1-0 in the top of the first, while an erroneous throw by the Bears second baseman scored the Elephants’ second run of the game in the third.
That was more than enough to give the men in the golden uniforms the win as starter Carlos Castillo cruised through to the eighth inning with a lone allowed run on six hits to improve to 7-2 for the year.
PHOTO: LIAO YAO-TUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
“It was a big win for us because it meant a clean sweep,” Elephants coach Chen Rei-chen said after the game.
Chen is in the process of guiding the Elephants back to prominence after the game-fixing scandal prior to the season that nearly dismantled his team.
Failure to come up with the timely hits ultimately cost the Bears the win as they batted a dismal one-for-10 with runners in scoring position, including two double-plays, in a game in which they outhit the Elephants by a 7-5 margin.
Tagged with the tough loss despite having gone seven strong innings was Bears starter Ken Ray, who gave up three runs (one earned) on four hits as he fell back to an even 4-4 record for the season.
Lions 4, Bulls 3
Miscues by the defense also played a key role in the contest between the Sinon Bulls and the Uni-President Lions at the Douliou County Baseball Stadium last night in a come-from-behind win in extra innings for the Cats.
Shortstop Yang Dong-yi’s high throw to first with the bases loaded and two outs was off target, allowing the runner on third to score the game-winner in the bottom of the 10th in a dramatic finish for the Lions.
The play capped a two-run rally for the Lions after they had allowed a go-ahead to the Bulls in the top of the 10th on a fly-ball to shallow-left by Hsu Guo-long that was ruled a single to break a 2-2 tie.
The victory not only nipped a two-game slide for the Cats, but also avoided what would have been a three-game sweep at the hands of the first-half champions, who came into the game with a perfect 4-0 in the second half of the season.
Picking up the win was Lion closer Lin Yueh-ping, who did not look sharp at all with an earned run charged against him on two hits in the top of the 10th, while the loss went to the Bulls’ Micheal Tejera, who failed to preserve the win as he allowed a lead-off single to start the Lions’ 10th and surrendered the tying run on a walk before the eventual loss.
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