Strong pitching and timely hitting have propelled the Chinatrust Whales atop the standings in Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League.
The league's stingiest staff, with a collective earned run average of 2.93, has won four games in a row by allowing just five runs in that span, making it easy on the offense, which has not hit particularly well in recent games.
Other than ringing up nine runs in their 9-2 win over the Sinon Bulls on May 8, to start their current four-game winning streak, the Whales' offense has managed to produce only 10 combined runs in their following three victories against the President Lions, all on the strength of an outstanding pitching staff.
Whales 2, Lions 0
Emiliano Giron had a no-hitter going through the first four innings for the Whales in Thursday's series opener against the Lions, until Israel Alcantara broke it up with a clean line-drive single to open the fifth inning.
It was the only hit that the Lions could muster in the entire contest as Giron retired nine of the next 10 batters he faced (allowing one to reach first on a hit batsman in the fifth inning) in seven spectacular innings before ace closer Dario Veras nailed down the win with a perfect eighth and ninth innings for his league-leading eighth save.
Whales 3, Lions 1
Veras backed up fellow starter Bradley Purcell with two more innings of perfect relief work in Friday's 3-1 Whales victory.
After Purcell took a 3-1 lead into the sixth on a pair of fifth-inning scoring drives by shortstop Cheng Chang-ming and first baseman Chen Jien-wei, he began to tire and put runners on first and second.
In came rookie reliever Shen Yu-jeh, who got the Whales out of the jam with an inning-ending strikeout.
Shen pitched a scoreless seventh for his league-best seventh hold of the season before skipper Hsu Sheng-ming called on a Veras close out the game for the win.
Whales 5, Lions 2
Five unanswered runs by the Whales offense turned a 0-2 deficit into a 5-2 win on Sunday to sweep the three-game series against the Lions.
Starter Du Chang-wei for the Whales did not have his best stuff in the seven innings he pitched, but was effective in getting the crucial outs necessary to keep the nine Lions hits from generating more than a couple runs.
After the Whales scored three times in the eighth inning on third baseman Chen Jia-hung's suicide-squeeze attempt that turned into a infield single and second baseman Nelson Castro's two-run liner up the middle with the bases loaded.
other games
In other league action, the last-placed La New Bears played the second-placed Brother Elephants tough in a 2-2 series split last week, gaining the Bears some respect.
The Bears would have won the series 3-1 with a win on Wednesday if it were not for the Elephants' Peng "Chia Chia" Cheng-ming, who stole his way to an Elephants victory in a 4-3 final.
Peng broke a 3-3 deadlock in the bottom of the eighth when he singled to right to open the inning and stole second and third on the ensuing play before reaching home on a wild throw by the Bears catcher to third base in an attempt to gun down Peng.
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