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Cobras dominate series with Whales

Wilton Veras of the Dominican Republic got both game-winning hits in the Cobras' victories over the Whales last week. PHOTO: MACOTO COBRAS

Local pitchers delivered again for the undefeated Macoto Cobras in Games 3 and 4 of their four-game series against the Chinatrust Whales as they finished off the marine creatures in sweeping style with a pair of 2-1 victories last week in Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League.

Ace lefty Lin Ying-jeh held off an eager Whales attack, desperately in search of redemption following an embarrassing 18-1 blowout loss to the serpents on Tuesday, by limiting the Whales to one run on five hits in a complete-game outing.

Lin fanned five and walked two, boosting his league-leading strikeouts mark to 95.

Lin's brilliant effort onthe mound overshadowed a solid performance by Whales starter Emiliano Giron, who allowed only two runs on eight hits in seven innings, while striking out a season-high 11 to trail Lin by two strikeouts (93) for the year.

Offensively for the serpents, third baseman Wilton Veras's two-run, opposite-field home run off Giron in the third inning was enough to back up Lin for the night.

The loss was Giron's fourth of the season (7-4).

Cobras 2, Whales 1

Right fielder Yang Rei-chih brought in the first run in the top of the third inning on Saturday when he lined a shot to deep-left, putting the Cobras ahead 1-0.

In the bottom of the fifth, Whales second baseman Chiou Chi-pin evened things up with an RBI groundout to third off Cobras starter Lin En-yu.

The Whales could have tagged on at least another run with their two-on, and no-out start in the fifth, but poor base running coupled with a fine defensive throw by Cobras Hsu Sheng-jeh that gunned down a runner at third base, kept the Whales from turning it into a big inning.

Veras led off the seventh inning with his second homer in as many games. The solo shot off Whales starter Wang Guo-jing gave the serpents a 2-1 lead that they would not relinquish.

Pocketing the win for the victorious Cobras was Lin, who tossed seven frames of four-hit ball before reliever Rene Miniel preserved the win with a scoreless eighth and ninth.

Wang allowed seven hits over 6-1/3 innings in the loss.

Elephants 3, Lions 2

The Brother Elephants edged out the President Lions 2-1 in their three-game series last week after an impressive 3-2 win over the big cats in Kaohsiung on Sunday.

Following their 6-0 shutout of the Lions in Tainan on Friday that gave veteran pitcher Jonathan Hurst his sixth win of the season to even the series at one game apiece, the Elephants took advantage of two costly throwing errors by the Lions that scored three runs on a would-be one-run play.

With runners on first and second, Elephants second baseman Fong Sheng-shien drove a high pitch from Lions starter Julio Manon to left on a clean single for the first run on the play.

A poor relay throw allowed the runner on first to score the Elephants' second run before another poor throw to the plate then sent home Fong to complete the rare three-run sequence.

Although the Lions would cut the Elephants' lead to 3-2 with a run scored in the seventh on pinch hitter Kuo Dai-chi's RBI single off Elephants starter Muto Jun Ichiro, and threaten again in the ninth against closer Wu Bao-hong in a one-out, with two-on situation, pinch hitter Tseng Yang-chih then bounced a hard grounder to second, stopping the Lions comeback in a hurry on a game-ending double play.

Falling victim to the rare three-run play, Manon (0-2) remained winless for the year with the loss, while his counterpart Muto snapped up the win in a game where their fortune could have easily been reversed.

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