BASEBALL/Teng Kai-wei suffers fourth loss in Giants' 4-3 defeat to Cardinals

Taipei, Sept. 8 (CNA) Teng Kai-wei (鄧愷威), Taiwan's only active pitcher in Major League Baseball, took his fourth loss of the 2025 season after the San Francisco Giants fell 4-3 to the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday.

The right-hander held the Cardinals scoreless through the first four innings, allowing two hits and two walks while striking out eight to tie his personal best, before running out of steam in the fifth.

Teng opened the bottom of the fifth with three straight walks and was pulled after Lars Nootbaar's RBI single. He was charged with two more earned runs after reliever Jose Butto gave up a single and a walk.

The Cardinals scored all four of their runs in that inning, while the Giants, which combined for only five hits, tallied all three of theirs in the following frame.

After the game, Teng attributed his fatigue to his role change this season. "I adopted a different load of weight training as I changed from reliever to starter, but I probably haven't shown that yet in games," he said.

His next step, he added, is to refine his game plan: "Observe batters' swings more keenly and see what kind of pitches they might be focusing on."

The Giants finished their six-game road trip at 4-2, dropping the last two games after five straight wins. On Saturday, they took a 2-0 lead into the bottom of the ninth, only to see the Cardinals score three runs to walk it off.

"In our position right now, we have to win more games than that," Giants manager Bob Melvin spoke of the road trip finish after the game. "It doesn't matter who we're playing. We just have to play well and expect to win games."

The Giants sit third in the National League West at 72-71, four games behind the final wild-card spot. They will host a three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks before taking on the division-leading Los Angeles Dodgers at home from Friday to Sunday.