A pair of impressive wins over the Brother Elephants started the week for the Sinon Bulls as the defending champs desperately seek for consistent run production on offense and solid starting pitching on defense.
Tuesday's 10-4 series-opening trouncing at Hsinchu began with a nine-run first inning by the visiting Bulls that sent Elephants starter Chuang Pei-chuan straight to the showers as the second-year righty allowed the first six hitters to reach base via five hits and an issued walk.
The nine first-inning hits by the Bulls set a new club record for most hits in an inning while the nine runs scored by the Bulls offense tied the team mark for most runs in a single inning.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CPBL
"I don't know what happened, but they [the Bulls] were smacking everything we threw at them. Not even in batting practice do you see this kind of hitting," Elephants manager Lin Yi-tseng said after the game, referring to the Bulls' rare offensive explosion against his pitching staff.
Lin's lineup finally got on the board with a run in the fourth when cleanup man Peng "Chia Chia" Cheng-ming's grounder to short scored Chen "the Golden Warrior" Chih-yuan from third after Chen had advanced to third from first following a wild pitch by Bulls starter Tsai Chung-nan on the previous play.
The wild pitch was the only big mistake that Tsai made in five strong innings of work as the former Rookie of the Year winner in 2002 won for just the second time this season following a string of nagging injuries that had limited him to mostly a reliever's role over the past year.
Offensively for the resurging Bulls, outfielder Tseng Hua-wei led the way with a 4-for-5 night en route to a game-MVP performance, while designated hitter Chen Tsung-fu and power hitter Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan added three and two RBIs, respectively, in a Bulls' hit parade.
Bulls 4, Elephants 0
Sinon fireballer Osvaldo Martinez recorded his ninth victory of the season in grand style as the Bulls blanked the Elephants in Taichung by a 4-0 final on Wednesday to run their winning streak against the Elephants to four in a row.
Chang and Chen did most of the damage on the offense again, accounting for three of the four Bulls' runs; the former belting two solo blasts and the latter knocking in another run with a lining single in the top of the fifth.
Martinez outpitched a valiant effort from Elephants starter Nakagomi Sin who surrendered three runs on seven hits in eight innings of work, with seven scoreless innings of six-hit ball. Set-up man Ho Ji-shien kept the shutout intact with two innings of one-hit relief to set the Elephants back for the second time in as many games this week.
Upcoming Games
Play will resume for the Bulls and the Elephants in the all-important Game 3 at Hsinchu tonight, before they meet again in the series finale at Tienmu tomorrow afternoon.
Looking for respect and team confidence, the Elephants will undoubtedly send veteran hurler Jonathan Hurst to the mound to help stop the bleeding at once.
It will not be an easy task for Hurst as the Bulls will surely counter with Panamanian great Lenin Picota, the league's only 10-game winner so far this year.
Also worthy of a visit to the ball park this week will be the three-game series between the Macoto Cobras and the President Lions at Hsinchu (Thursday) and Luodong (tomorrow and Sunday) as the serpents look to remain undefeated in the third week of competition in the second half of the season.
Skipper Kuo Tai-yuan will refer to his local pitching trio, starting with Lin Ying-jeh (8-5) in yesterday's series opener, followed by Hsu Chu-jien (8-4) on Saturday and Lin En-yu (8-3) on Sunday to continue the Cobras' winning way.
Last but not least, the La New Bears were to open their three-game homestand versus the Chinatrust Whales in Kaohsiung with yesterday's contest between starters Matt Beech (La New) and Emiliano Giron (Whales), before the rest of the rotation picks up the slack in a crucial series for both clubs as far as the standings are concerned.
Sitting at 2-3 (as of yesterday), the Bears could improve their third-place spot in the standings to as high as number two with a clean sweep of the Whales, regardless of the outcomes from the other games.
As for the last-placed Whales, coming out of the series with a winning record should put them in good position for the four-game set against the Elephants in the week following the All-Star Game weekend.
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