A big home run by the Lamigo Monkeys’ Liu “Doraemon” Shih-hao dominated sports headlines in Taiwan and also drew the attention of a Major League Baseball (MLB) writer, while the Monkeys were seeking to maintain their winning ways in the CPBL, going to extra innings in their game against the Brothers Baseball Club at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium at press time last night.
In the second contest of a double-header against the Fubon Guardians in Taoyuan on Sunday evening, the home side won 6-5 in dramatic fashion.
The Monkeys trailed 3-4 late in the eighth inning, but had runners on the corners, prompting Lamigo manager Hung Yi-chung to call upon reserve catcher Liu to pinch hit.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Liu pulled the trigger on the first pitch, sending it over the rightfield fence for a three-run homer that put his team into the lead.
Footage of the hit showed Liu going down on one knee in his follow through and coolly flipping the bat away, with the MLB’s Cut 4 Web site featuring the clip.
MLB writer Adrian Garro praised it as “perhaps one of the most authoritative bat flips to ever be flipped.”
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Liu “connected on an inside pitch and sent a baseball deep into the night while falling to a knee and flipping his bat in a way that almost seems as if his bat flipped itself out of his hands, pleased by its hard work,” Garro said.
“Yes, it felt great the moment I hit the ball, although the pressure was on me at the time,” Liu said after the game. “When I got the call to pinch hit, I just wanted to make contact and made a contribution. That first pitch was a strike, so I gave it a good swing, thinking that if I failed, at least I tried.”
“That was a good move” to call for Liu to pinch hit, Hung said. “I had an intuition that he would connect, although I was looking at just getting one run in, but he surprised me by blasting it for a three-run homer.”
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Home runs and extra-base hits have been a key component of Lamigo’s wins and designated hitter Lin Hung-yu smashed a two-run dinger in their home game yesterday as the Monkeys sought a sixth straight victory.
On Tuesday, Guardians’ stars Lin Che-hsuan and Lin Yi-chuan were reportedly at odds as they fell to their sixth consecutive defeat.
They lost 9-5 to the Uni-President Lions at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium.
Outfielder Cheng Kai-wen slammed a three-run homer to help the Lions to the win in their first game of the season at their home ground.
Taiwan’s men’s A team last night defeated their counterpart B team 82-77 in their first showdown in the William Jones Cup at New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang Gymnasium. With four wins under their belt, Taiwan’s A squad — also known as the blue team, consisting of the national team’s main roster — lead the tournament, while Malaysia and the Philippines Strong Group-Pilipinas, who were not scheduled to play last night, are both undefeated with three wins each. Taiwanese-American teenager Robert Hinton, playing in his first William Jones Cup, led the scoring early in the first quarter, putting up nine points for the A
A chance encounter during a drunken night out was the unlikely catalyst for breaker Sunny Choi’s journey to the Paris Olympic Games. The 35-year-old American is to showcase her skills before a global audience in Paris when breaking makes its debut on the Olympic stage. Choi is the beneficiary of efforts to attract younger fans to the Olympics, a move that led to breaking’s inclusion for the first time. However, as Choi says, the Olympics was the last thing on her mind when she took up the sport. A freshman student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, Choi stumbled into breaking
Teenage gymnast Shoko Miyata has been pulled from Japan’s team for the Paris Olympics after being caught smoking and drinking, officials said yesterday. The 19-year-old, a world bronze medalist and captain of Japan’s women’s gymnastics team for the Games, was sent home from their training camp in Monaco and admitted she had violated the squad’s code of conduct. “With her confirmation and after discussions on all sides, it has been decided that she will withdraw from the Olympics,” Japan Gymnastics Association (JGA) secretary-general Kenji Nishimura told reporters in Tokyo. Nishimura said the association had been told that Miyata was seen smoking in a
Former NFL receiver Jacoby Jones, whose 108-yard kickoff return in 2013 remains the longest touchdown in Super Bowl history, has died at the age of 40. The Houston Texans, Jones’ team for the first five seasons of his career, announced his death on Sunday. In a statement released by the NFL Players Association, his family said he died at his home in New Orleans. A cause of death was not given. Jones played from 2007 to 2015 for the Texans, Baltimore Ravens, San Diego Chargers and Pittsburgh Steelers, and he made several huge plays for the Ravens during their most recent Super