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Bulls take title for season's first half

Mother nature might have spoiled the game schedule during the latter half of last week with two straight days of pouring rain, but she did not ruin the Sinon Bulls' countdown party as they clinched the title for the first half of the season.

Two impressive victories by the Bulls over the President Lions in Tainan on Sunday by scores of 6-3 (day game) and 5-2 (night game) completed a three-game series sweep.

The doubleheader in Tainan was scheduled on Sunday as the result of Saturday night's downpour that turned away many Bull fans that had made the two-hour drive from Taichung to cheer on their team. For those who decided to stay in Tainan overnight for the doubleheader on Sunday, the Bulls made sure their trip back to Taichung would be a happy one with a sweep of the series.

The series started out on Thursday with the showdown between the two starting aces on each staff. In the 7-3 Bull victory, Jeff Andra outpitched his counterpart Joe Davenport to record his league-high ninth win of the season with five solid innings of play and some timely help from his bullpen.

The game began with the Bulls taking an early 4-1 lead after five innings before starter Andra ran into some trouble in the sixth, allowing the first two hitters to reach base on two back-to-back singles. Both runners would eventually score to make it 4-3 on a fielder's choice and a sacrifice fly off reliever Yu Wen-pin (余文彬) to give Andra a slim one-run lead heading into the seventh.

That was as close as the Lions would get because ace closer Ramon Morel came into the game with one out in the seventh and kept the doors shut the rest of the way for the first of his two saves of the week.

Similar to game one, game two on Sunday afternoon also began with the Bulls taking a 4-0 lead after 5-1/2 innings of play before the Lions roared back with three runs in the bottom of the sixth to make it 4-3.

Again, that was as close as the Lions would get because the relieving corps of the Bulls did its job once more with three innings that ended with Morel's second save of the series, bailing out starter Osvaldo Martinez for his seventh win of the season.

Lion rookie sensation Pan Wei-luen (潘威倫) fell victim to an offense that could not come up with timely hits late in the game as he took his third defeat of the season in the 6-3 loss, allowing four runs on eight hits over 6-1/3 innings.

Almost a replay of the first two games of the series, Sunday night's series finale featured a 4-0 Bulls lead after six innings of play before the Lions got on the board with two runs of their own in the bottom of the seventh to make it 4-2. For the third game in a row, the Bulls bullpen came up huge as it held the Lions scoreless for the rest of the game to preserve the victory for starter Tsai Chung-nan (蔡仲南).

"It [clinching the title] came as a surprise for us, because we had to win all three games and they [Whales] had to lose all three games" the beer-soaked Bulls skipper Chen Wei-chen (陳威成) told reporters during the post-game celebration. "I really thought we wouldn't be crowned until next week in Taichung."

Still in search of his first win of the season after joining the team two weeks ago, Lions starter John Burgos of the US took the tough loss in a nine-hit, four-run effort over six innings of play.

Whales chances sunk

Elsewhere in the league, the Chinatrust Whales' hopes for a title run ended with three straight defeats against the Makoto Gida in Chiayi. The Whales' inability to protect leads late in the game ultimately cost them two of the three games over the weekend and a shot at the title.

After Thursday night's 6-3 loss, the Whales seemed to have turned the corner on the Gida with a two-run seventh inning to take a 5-4 lead on Friday night.

That was before reliever Lin Chao-huang (林朝煌) blew the one-run lead in the eighth by allowing four runs on three hits, in what became an eight-run inning by the Gida offense. The short-lived one-run Whale lead turned into a seven-run deficit 11 Gida batters and three Whale relievers later.

The final score of 12-6 virtually put the title out of reach for the once-promising Whales team that had most experts picking them to win it all at the beginning of the season based on the fact that the team had given up its top hitter Chen Lien-hung (陳連宏) in an off-season trade with the Lions for the coveted set-up man Lin Chao-huang to beef up its pitching staff.

Down two games to none in the three-game series, the Whales once again took a 2-1 lead into the seventh inning of the series finale on Sunday, before starter Nakayama Hiroaki stumbled and turned the one-run lead into a one-run deficit. The Whales offense could not salvage the day for Nakayama in his bid for his eighth win of the season as the score remained 3-2 until the end of the game.

Elephants play one

The Brother Elephants never played again after Wednesday's 8-3 win against the Agan, because games three and four of the series were both rained out. The two teams will make up both games at Hsinchuang on June 10th and June 18th to complete the series.
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