Lions catcher Wu hero of the nihgt

President Lions catcher Wu Chao-hui's (吳昭輝) successful attempt at blocking the potential tying run in front of home plate at the bottom of the ninth preserved his team's victory against the Chinatrust Whales 3-2, in the first game of this week's three-game series at Chiayi.

The Whales sent their 14-win starter Sung Chao-chee (宋肇基）to the mound to seek his 15th victory and tie Brother Elephants' Jonathan Hurst on the top of the standings.

Dai Lung-shwei (戴龍水) of the Lions started in the hope of stopping a three-game slide which was handed down by the Elephants last weekend.

On the top of the second the Lions started its offense against Sung first. Ko Chien-feng (柯建鋒) belted a double to the left and got home to score on teammate Tsai Koon-shiang's (蔡昆祥) double to center, that went all the way to the warning track.

A fielding error by Whales third baseman Chen Chien-wei (陳健偉) allowed a second run as the Lions took an early lead after the end of the second inning.

A third run for the Lions was added on the top of the fourth as Ko and Tsai belted a double and a single, respectively, to increase their team's lead to 3-0.

At bottom of the eighth the Whales came back. After two were retired by reliever Shen Bo-tsang (沈柏蒼), the bases were loaded on one hit and two walks issued by Shen.

The Lions sent Chen Rong-dzao (陳榮造), their third pitcher of the night, to struck out the last batter of the inning and left all three runners strained on the bases.

At the bottom of the ninth the Whales took the advantage of two walks issued by Chen in addition to another two hits to score two runs.

The runner on second attempted to score the tying run on Chen Chien-wei's (陳健偉) single to the center, but with Lions catcher Wu blocking home plate, he tagged the runner out and the Lions held on and won the game 3-2.

Dai pitched six innings while giving up six scattered hits with five strikeouts to Whales batters, as he recorded his third win of the season and won him the HiNet MVP of the game.

COURTESY CPBL, CHIAYI

Taichung Agan simply out-hit its opponent Chiayi Luka, last night in Taichung, to win by the widest of margins 11-4.

Agan starter Enrique Quintanilla pitched eight solid innings behind an 11-run support for his 14th win of the season and gave up a total of four runs on five hits.

Ace closer Ned Darley came on to retire the side in the ninth in a non-save situation.

It was the first time that Darley had seen any action in over a week. Luka, playing its sixth game in the past seven nights, showed some signs of fatigue as starter Kuo Wen-chiu (郭文居) took himself out of the game during the third and the bullpen again failed to keep the opposing hitters at bay during the middle-to-late innings.

The three Luka pitchers combined to yield 11 runs on 13 hits for the game.

Offensively for the Agan, the league's number one and two

hitters, Roberto Mejia and Hsieh Chia-chien (謝佳賢) took the Luka pitchers to school as they went 3-for-4 and 1-for-3 respectively.

COURTESY TML