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Picota pockets his 12th Cobra victory

Starter Lenin Picota of the Bulls pitches against the Whales in Tienmu on Sunday. Picota picked up his CPBL-leading 12th win of the season in the 4-3 win. PHOTO: SINON BULLS

Lenin Picota became the first pitcher in Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League to win 12 games this season when he beat the Chinatrust Whales 4-3 in Tienmu on Sunday.

Tied with the Macoto Cobras' Lin En-yu and Lin Ying-jeh for most wins with 11 for over a month, the Sinon Bulls ace has had trouble pocketing the elusive 12th over his last four starts, as the Bulls offense failed to provide much run support.

Sunday's game appeared to be headed in the same low-scoring direction for the Bulls, as they trailed the Whales 2-0 after five innings of play, until three fatal defensive errors by the Whales, coupled with Huang Chung-yi's clutch RBI single, made it a four-run sixth for the Bulls to give them a 4-2 cushion.

The Whales made it interesting in the ninth when third baseman Chen Jia-hong belted a one-out, solo home run off Bulls reliever Osvaldo Martinez to make it 4-3, but that was as close as they got as Martinez preserved the win for his club with two quick outs to end the game.

Picota limited the Whales to two runs on five hits in six innings, while striking out seven and walking two for the win.

Whales reliever Shen Yu-jeh was tagged with the loss for yielding the game-winner in the decisive sixth. He lasted just 1/3 of an inning.

COBRAS 5, ELEPHANTS

The Cobras forced a 2-2 series split against the Brother Elephants last week by shutting out the Elephants 5-0 in Chiayi on Saturday after dropping Game 3, 4-1 on Friday.

Rookie phenomenon Lin En-yu pitched five shutout innings of three-hit ball for the win before handing the game over to the Cobras bullpen for four innings of stellar relief work.

Offensively for the Cobras, the potent lineup finally broke loose against Elephants starter Jonathan Hurst in the sixth and the seventh innings, ringing up three insurance runs (one in the sixth and two in the seventh) off the veteran Elephants righty.

Missing all three of members of their famous "Three Swordsmen" (Chen "Golden Warrior" Chih-yuan, Peng "Chia Chia" Cheng-ming, and Tsai "A-Bian" Fong-an) to various injuries, the Elephants offense was unable to generate run support.

Lions 2, Bears 1

The President Lions avoided an otherwise embarrassing series sweep by the La New Bears in taking the series finale at Kaohsiung in a 2-1 thriller on Sunday, after dropping the first two games with two late-game collapses earlier in the week.

The win not only gave the big cats a much needed win, it ended the Bears' winning skid at eight to temporarily cool off the hottest club in the league.

Sunday's contest had the home Bears one out away from clinching their ninth win in a row when Lions first baseman Kao Guo-ching knocked in the game-tying run on a single off Bears reliever Hsu Wen-hsiung, before outfielder Liu Fu-hao followed with another single to score the go-ahead run for his team.

Ace closer Mike Garcia pitched a scoreless ninth for his 14th save of the season, preserving the win for setup man Kao Long-wei, who tossed a perfect eighth.

Hsu fell to 2-3 for the year for failing to keep the team-high eight-game winning streak in the disheartening loss.

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