Sweeping their three-game series against the La New Bears in Kaohsiung last week in Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League, the Macoto Cobras broke the league record for consecutive wins with their 11th straight victory to remain undefeated (with one tie) in the second half of the season.
The Cobras are the first team to go through an entire month without a loss.
The Cobras opened their week in Kaohsiung with a 4-2 win over the Bears, where starter Hsu Chu-jien won for his seventh straight with 6-2/3 innings of two-run ball on five hits, en route to a game-MVP performance.
Backing up Hsu with his first career home run was shortstop Kuo Ming-ren, whose leadoff blast on the opening pitch set the tone for the serpents.
The 4-0 Cobras lead stood until the bottom of the fifth when the Bears finally got on the board with two runs to make it 4-2, thanks to a rare triple by outfielder Huang Long-yi that sent both runners home.
That was as close as the home Bears would get because Cobras setup man Lee Ming-jing and closer Rene Miniel teamed up to toss 2-1/3 innings of hitless relief to secure the win for the serpents.
Pocketing the tough loss for the Bears was American righty Chris Wright, who received minimal help from his teammates as the Bears committed two costly errors on defense in addition to generating just two runs.
Cobras 8, Bears 5
The Bears offense managed to log five runs against the Cobras in Saturday's game, but it still wasn't enough to beat a Macoto lineup that grinded out eight runs for its 10th win in a row in an 8-5 final.
The serpents chipped away at an early 3-0 deficit by scoring a run each in the fourth and fifth innings on slugger Hsieh Jia-shien's solo homer and second-year man Chen Yuan-jia's sacrifice fly before taking the lead for good in the top of the sixth on a two-run single by catcher Chen Keh-fang off Bears reliever Hsu Wen-hsiung.
Macoto would up its lead to 8-4 with a couple of runs in the seventh and eighth inning before the Bears made it 8-5 in the bottom of the eighth on designated hitter Wang Jien-chiang's RBI single.
Starter Lin Ying-jeh regained his top form for the win by retiring 15 of the next 17 Bears hitters he faced, after yielding three quick runs in the first inning.
Failing for the second time in three starts, Hsu Yu-wei of the Bears suffered the loss for his inability to hold onto an early lead. He allowed four runs on five hits in as many innings.
Cobras 8, Bears 1
The Cobras matched their scoring total from the previous game by ringing up eight more runs off the Bears staff in Sunday's series finale.
The Bears offense never left the club house in the 8-1 slaughter.
Hsieh Jia-shien added to his league-leading home run total with his 19th of the season when he smashed a pitch by Bears lefty Lin Si-yo over the right center-field fence for a solo shot to spot Macoto starter Lin En-yu a 3-0 lead in the third inning.
That was more than the rookie righty needed as he silenced the Bears bats with eight frames of one-run ball for his 10th win in 15 starts.
In other games, the Brother Elephants took the four-game series against the Chinatrust Whales by a 3-1 margin, when they won the last three contests of the series by a combined 15-3 scoring differential.
The Sinon Bulls salvaged a series tie versus the President Lions with a 6-4 win over the big cats in Taichung on Sunday, after playing to an 8-8 tie in Thursday's series opener and dropping Game 2 to the Lions in a 3-2 heartbreaker at Hsinchu Friday night.
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