The regular season champions Taichung Agan avenged their embarrassing loss from the night before by winning big against the Kaohsiung Fala in a 6-2 contest last night.
For the first four innings of the game, the Fala looked as if they were ready to follow the win from the night before with another strong performance. Then came the reality.
Trailing by a run, the Agan hitters smacked three straight hits against Fala starter Hsu Wen-hsiung (許文雄) on top of the fifth to take a 2-1 lead, and they never looked back.
Knowing a one-run cushion would not be good enough against these tough Fala, the Agan offense scored another pair of runs in the sixth and the ninth to give starting pitcher Muto Koji, who pitched eight brilliant innings, a comfortable five-run lead.
Needing to rest his starting pitcher, Agan manager Wu Fu-lien (吳復連) then put in his ace closer Ned Darley in the ninth to finish the game. The move almost backfired, because the usually-automatic Darley experienced a rare control problem as he walked four of the six batters that he faced.
Darley's miscues led to another Fala run and loaded the bases with the tying-run coming to the plate.
With two outs and the bases loaded, Agan pitcher Enrique Quintanilla, in a rare relief appearance, came into the game to record the last out for his first save of the season. The win was Agan starter Muto's seventh of the season, while his counterpart Hsu suffered his seventh defeat of the season.
With the series tied at one game apiece, both teams are sure to give their best for tonight's series-deciding game.
courtesy CPBL
In front of yet another sold-out crowd in Hsinchuang Stadium last night (there had now been four consecutive weekend sold-outs in Hsinchuang Stadium this season), the Whales -- led by their Japanese ace Nakayama Hiroaki -- successfully shut down the Elephants to win the game 2-0 to prevent the Elephants from clinching the second-half season title this week.
In what could very possible be the preview of this year's CPBL playoff showdown, the Whales came to Hsinchuang to host the Elephants.
They sent their Japanese pitcher Nakayama Hiroaki to start when the Elephants had their ace Jonathan Hurst on the mound, aiming for his 16th win of the season.
After being shut down for the first two innings, the Whales' Cheng Chang-ming (鄭昌明) belted the first hit of the night to get on the base. Yang Sung-shien (楊松弦) then hit a triple to the deep left that let Cheng score to lead the Elephants 1-0. In the sixth the Whales again scored another run on two hits against Hurst to double the lead to 2-0.
The Elephants bats were silenced by Whales starter Nakayama as he only allowed five scattered hits to completely shut off the Elephants and win his 11th of the season.
In other games the Lions lost to the bulls 1 to 4.
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