The La New Bears bounced back with a pair of impressive wins over the Brother Elephants during Chinese Professional Baseball League action Thursday and Friday in Kaohsiung after dropping back-to-back games for the first time this season earlier this week.
Emerging right-hander Hsu Chih-hua picked up his third victory of the year with 4-2/3 innings of shutout relief against the men in gold to prove that his selection as the Pitcher of the Month last month was well deserved.
The eventual 5-2 Bears win had the hosts jumping to a 2-0 lead in the opening inning against Elephants starter Liu Jung-nan when cleanup hitter Chen Chin-fong and first baseman Pan Chung-wei connected for RBI singles.
Spotted with two first-inning runs, Bears starter Wu Si-yo would squander the lead in the next two innings with a balk that scored the Elephants' first run in the top of the second before allowing an RBI single to Brother outfielder Chen Huai-shan in the third to knot things up at 2-all.
Shih Chih-wei then took over the game for the Bears with a run-scoring double in the fourth that put his team ahead 3-2 and a sacrifice-fly in the eighth that provided an insurance run en route to a 3-for-3 game-MVP night.
Lack of run support dealt Liu his second loss of the season as the third-year righty remained winless for the year, despite pitching six innings of three-run ball in a quality start.
Elephants 1, Bears 6
Kenny Rayborn made it look easy against the Elephants in his Taiwan debut as the newest Bears starter came away with a 6-1 victory in Kaohsiung Thursday.
The American right-hander, who played for the Hiroshima Carps in Japan last year after spending several seasons in the American minors, allowed one run on a lone single to the Elephants' Fong Sheng-shien in the third inning over seven magnificent innings of work for his first win of the year.
Offensively for the Bears, Pan accounted for half of the six runs by going 3-for-4 with three RBIs, including a two-run shot off Elephants starter Brian Rodaway over the left-field wall in the sixth. Rookie catcher Lin Sheng-kai also collected his first career home run on a towering shot to deep-left off Rodaway in the bottom of the fourth, which was good for a pair of runs.
Bulls 4, Lions 4
Poor late-game relief continued to trouble the Sinon Bulls as the defending champs surrendered another late-inning lead to end Friday night's contest against the President Lions at Sinjuang in a 4-4 tie.
After dropping the series opener 4-3 in Hsinchu on Wednesday -- a game in which reliever Yu Wen-pin gave up the winning run to the Lions' Huang Gang-lin in the final at-bat -- the Bulls failed to keep a 4-2 10th-inning lead Friday when Yu allowed the first two batters to get on base before the Lions' Wu Jia-rong knocked in both runners with a two-run double off Jorge Cortez to force the tie.
Yang Seng's opposite-field triple down the third-base line broke a scoreless tie in the bottom of the sixth before Chen Jia-wei made it 2-0 in favor of the big cats on an RBI single off Bulls starter Alfredo Gonzalez.
It took the Bulls two straight base hits and an off throw on a put-out attempt by Lions closer Tseng Yi-cheng in the top of the ninth to score their first run of the game before Huang Chung-yi evened things up at 2-2 with a one-run single off Tseng to right.
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