Romulo Sanchez pitched seven innings of shutout ball, while Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min drove in three runs with a towering blast in the bottom of the first as the Chinatrust Brothers blanked the Lamigo Monkeys 3-0 at the Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium last night to take the weekend series.
Fresh off an 8-5 win over the Primates at the Sinjhuang Baseball Stadium in New Taipei City the night before to start the weekend on a high note, the Brothers needed to win last night’s contest to overtake the top-ranked EDA Rhinos, winners of four of their past five heading into their game last night, to take the lead in the standings.
And that was exactly what the men in the golden uniforms got as Sanchez took a perfect game two outs into the fourth, before giving up a single to the Monkeys’ Lin Chih-sheng in the inning.
With the weight off his shoulders, the Venezuelan righty cruised through the seventh by allowing only two more hits and one more runner to reach second in one of his best outings of the season to lift his team over their foes.
Offensively for the Brothers, Chia Chia’s first-inning blast off Monkeys starter Tseng Jau-hao proved to be the difference as the latter quickly regained his composure by silencing the Brothers offense through the sixth without further damage to keep his team in the game.
Picking up his first win of the season was Sanchez, while the loss by Tseng was his sixth of the year. He is now 1-6 in 12 starts with an ERA of 4.01.
Lions 15, Rhinos 5
The Uni-President Lions roughed up the EDA Rhinos 15-5 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium last night to ruin the Rhinos’ visit to Greater Tainan.
Five quick runs over the first two frames by the Rhinos’ offense, highlighted by Kao Guo-hui’s three-run home run off Liao Wen-yang, had many Lions fans booing their normally dependable starter, despite his team-best 9-4 record.
The five early runs turned out to be the only runs that Liao would surrender before he was pulled after the sixth with a commanding 13-5 lead after four consecutive shutout innings from the third on.
Doing the damage at the plate for the Cats were Chang “OEO” Tai-shan and Chou Guan-sheng, who drove in seven runs on a combined 6-for-9 effort to humiliate the EDA pitching.
Liao was awarded his 10th win of the year with a prompt recovery from a dismal start, allowing five runs (two earned) on as many hits over six innings of work to beat EDA reliever Lin Chen-hua, who gave up two runs on a pair of hits in the decisive fourth to remain winless at 0-7 for the year.
‘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.
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
HAT-TRICK PREP: World No. 1 Sabalenka clinched her first win of the season, as she aims to become the first woman in 20 years to win three Australian Opens in succession Coco Gauff, Jasmine Paolini and Taylor Fritz yesterday all clocked impressive wins as tennis powerhouses Italy and the US surged into the quarter-finals of the mixed-team United Cup. World No. 3 Gauff swept past Croatia’s Donna Vekic 6-4, 6-2 to avenge a loss at the Paris Olympics, while Fritz took care of Borna Coric 6-3, 6-2 in searing Perth heat. That was enough to put the Americans — last year’s winners — into a last-eight clash with China today, while Elena Rybakina’s Kazakhstan today are to meet defending champions Germany, led by Alexander Zverev, in the other Perth quarter-final. In Sydney, the in-form
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