Chang Tai-shan nears 100 homers

Not even the hottest soap opera could compete with the drama that was on the CPBL stage last week, as we take a look at three series that had a little bit of something to suit everyone's taste.

The storyline of the week was: Can the 27-year-old Sinon Bulls third-baseman Chang "Prince of the forest" Tai-shan (張泰山) get the two home runs that he needed over the weekend to reach the century mark, which would make him the youngest local player to accomplish such feat in the history of the league?

Having hit one out of the park on Saturday night in front of a home crowd of over 10,000 against Brother Elephants ace Jonathan Hurst, Chang filled the Taichung Stadium again on Sunday with another sold-out crowd eagerly awaiting the making of baseball history. Unfortunately, he had no home runs and ended up going one-for-five in a 14-4 losing effort against the Elephants, but did bring all those watching to their feet with a fly ball deep to right-center in the seventh, which was caught on the warning track by a back-pedaling Elephants center-fielder Chen Chih-yuen (陳致遠).

Overshadowed initially by the hype related to Chang's approach to the century mark, then by his second defeat of the season, was Bulls starter Osvaldo Martinez's own version of history-making. Martinez retired Elephants second baseman Feng Hseng-shian (馮勝賢) in the third inning to record his 856th career strikeout, surpassing the league record of 855 set by former President Lions pitcher and current Lions manager Hsieh Chang-hehn (謝長亨).

The win clinched the three-game series 2-to-1 for the Elephants against a strong Bulls.

The Makoto Gida did the near impossible in Kaohsiung by winning games three and four against the league-leading Lions, 8-2 and 4-2, respectively, to tie the series at two games apiece.

Down two games to zip going into Friday night's contest, Gida starter Tsai Shih-ching (蔡士勤) held back a powerful Lions lineup, that had averaged nearly seven runs per game, to just two runs on four hits in a complete-game outing.

The Gida continued their winning ways on Saturday against by holding the Lions to just two runs in a 4-2 affair.

Cheng Jing-yi (鄭景益), whose two-out bases-loaded single knocked home the game-winning run for the Gida.

The First Securities Agan managed to prevent the three-game series sweep by the ChinaTrust Whales with a 3-all tie on Sunday. Unlike games one and two against the Whales, where the Agan lost both games by a whopping combined score of 26-to-4, Sunday night's game in Hsinchuang went down the wire. The Agan took a 3-1 lead into the eighth, only to see it vanish, courtesy Whale designated hitter Tseng Han-chou's (曾漢州) one-out, bases-loaded, game-tying single.

"It's one of those games where you wish you could catch a break," Agan starter Greg Bicknell said.