Chou Si-chi homered on a three-RBI night and Chang Cheng-wei followed with a clutch hit that drove in a pair, as the Brother Elephants broke a scoreless tie wide open with a four-run sixth to beat the Uni-President Lions 6-1 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium last night to clinch the weekend series.
It was the eighth long ball that the veteran slugger has crushed this season, heating his bat up at the right time for the men in the golden uniforms as they trail the top-ranked Lamigo Monkeys in the standings by one game with a handful of games remaining in the regular season.
The pitchers had their way early in the game, with the Elephants’ Lin Yu-ching and the Lions’ Pan “Du Du” Wei-lung tossing five innings of shutout ball, despite each allowing opposing runners to reach scoring positions on more than two occasions.
Du Du’s luck finally ran out when the Elephants’ Chang doubled off him in the top of the sixth and scored the game’s first run on Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min’s single to set up Chou’s game-changing three-run blast.
Even though the Lions answered with a run of their own in the bottom of the inning, that was all the offense they could muster off Lin, who lasted through the seventh in a gutsy outing to win his 10th game of the year.
Taking the loss was Pan, who fell to 5-9 for the season with four allowed runs on eight hits over 5-1/3 innings.
RHINOS 9, MONKEYS 4
The EDA Rhinos also roughed up the Lamigo Monkeys with a resounding home triumph at the Kaohsiung Cheng Ching Lake Baseball Stadium last night to even their weekend series against the Primates at one win apiece.
Nick Green of the US had a big day for the first-half champs as he baffled the Monkeys’ hitters with 7-2/3 innings of two-run ball on seven hits to win his second of the year since joining the Rhinos late last month.
The Rhinos’ Lin Yi-chuan shook off a recent hitting slump with three RBIs on a two-for-three night to lead his team to victory.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later