With their lead in league standings down to half a game over the second placed President Lions at the start of last week, the Brother Elephants needed a strong series against the Lions to re-establish their dominance in the league. And that was exactly what they did -- though they were perhaps not as dominating as they would have liked.
The four-game series between the two teams began with a 1-1 tie that should have been a Lion win on Tuesday night, had it not been for Elephant slugger Peng Cheng-ming's (彭政閔) two-out, run-scoring triple in the bottom of the ninth. It was not pretty, but the Elephants managed to hold on to the slim 1/2-game lead.
Wednesday night's 8-7 thriller in favor of the Elephants again should have been a "W" for the Lions. Instead, the five errors committed by the Lion defense that led to five unearned Elephant runs cost starter John Frascatore a win. Again, it was not pretty, but the Elephants were able to gain a whole game on the Lions.
Friday night's 8-1 victory for the Elephants was not exactly a blowout that the score might have suggested, because it was a 2-1 affair until the flood gates opened in the bottom of the seventh for the Elephants. Both teams managed to collect six hits off the opposing pitchers, but the results were quite different.
It was not luck this time for the Elephants. The defending champs showed up and played like true champs by converting four of their six hits into six runs in the game-clinching seventh. Ten Elephant batters came to the plate to chase Lion starter Pan Wei-luen (潘威倫), who had just won the Pitcher of the Month honor in August with his four wins and an unearthly 0.5 ERA.
Elephant Nakagomi Sin's performance more than justified manager Lin Yi-tseng's (林 易增) decision to keep the Japanese veteran on the team. Nakagomi allowed one run on five hits over eight solid innings to give the Elephant bullpen some much needed rest. His only mistake came on a fastball to Lion right fielder Chen Cheng-shien (陳政賢) that landed in the left field bleachers for a solo blast. Nakagomi is 2-0 in his last three starts with a sound 1.48 ERA.
The Elephants' scrappy way of winning continued into Saturday night's 6-5 series finale at Tienmu. The Elephants answered with the go-ahead run in the sixth, right after the Lions had erased a 5-2 deficit in the top of the fifth on cleanup man Chen Cheng-shien's three-run homer to deep left. The game-winner came on a blooper to right-center by second baseman Fong Sheng-shien (馮勝賢) with the bases loaded.
Elephant Yokota Hisanori became the league's first 15-game winner on the night where he allowed five runs on nine hits while fanning eight.
The series between the First Securities Agan and the Makoto Gida treated fans in southern Taiwan to three exciting games of baseball. Game 1 in Kaohsiung on Thursday featured a strong outing by Agan starter Gabriel Ozuna where he held the Gida to four hits over 7-1/3 innings of play for a 5-1 win.
Game in Pingtung on Friday night was a classic pitching duel as both starters went deep into the game in a 2-1 affair.
The Gida drew first blood in the top of the second on second baseman Lin Yi- shang's (林義翔) RBI single up the middle and held the lead until the eighth when Agan outfielder Hsu Rau-yuan (許堯淵) slapped a single to right to tie it a 1-1.
The determined Gida club was not to be denied because catcher Chen Shih-fong' s (陳世鋒) solo blast off Agan reliever Lincoln Mikelsen in the top of the ninth was the difference in the game.
With the series tied at one game apiece, Sunday night's finale in Kaohsiung also went down the wire.
Agan baseman Yeh Cheng-lung's (葉成龍) RBI single in the fifth turned out to be the game winner because starter Claudio Galva had all his pitches working to near perfection in the 1-0 complete-game shutout. The left-hander from the Dominican Republic scattered four hits while fanning a season-high 13 to record the Agan's first shutout of the season.
"We could be on to something here, I hope the win gets us out of the cellar for good" Agan skipper Tsai Rong-tsung (蔡榮宗) said of his team's first shutout victory of the year.
