Bulls take title for season's first half

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.