Riding on the skilled left arm of Eric Cyr, the President Lions avoided a sweep by the La New Bears by winning the series finale 3-1 in Pingtung on Sunday.
Outscored by a combined margin of 18-6 in their three previous home losses for the week, the Lions were on the verge of dropping four straight to their archrivals from Kaohsiung.
But with Cyr, the new staff ace on the mound, the cats brought plenty of confidence into Game 4, taking a quick 2-0 lead in the second inning on shortstop Chang Jia-yuan's RBI groundout to short and catcher Kao Cheng-hua's one-run single to the opposite field, both off Bears starter Tsai Ying-fong.
PHOTO COURTESY OF CPBL
Lions cleanup hitter Lin "Wild Hog" Hong-yuan then drove a high pitch from Tsai to deep left for a solo homer in the third to make it 3-0.
Trailing by more than two runs in a game for just the second time in over two weeks, the league-leading Bears finally got to Cyr with a run in the sixth inning on Lin Chih-sheng's sacrifice fly to left field that scored Huang Long-yi, who led off the inning with a single to shallow left field.
Four Bears relievers came on after the third inning, keeping the Lions off the board the rest of the way, while Cyr and his bullpen mates did their part in shutting down the Bears as well.
Cyr (3-0) has an ERA of only .82.
Whales 4, Elephants 1
The Chinatrust Whales salvaged a 2-2 series split against the Brother Elephants with a 4-1 victory in Douliou to create a four-way tie for third place in the CPBL standings.
Starter Chu Wei-ming (3-0) pitched seven brilliant innings of one-run ball on three hits and a walk in his first career start against a red-hot Elephants lineup that had pounded out a dozen hits the night before. Chu was previously a relief pitcher for the Whales.
Huang Kwei-yu's two-run homer in the bottom of the second inning off Elephants starter Liu Jung-nan set the tone early, as the Whales jumped to a 3-0 lead after only two innings.
Although the Elephants scored a run in the top of the fourth on designated hitter Chen Huai-shan's groundout to first to cut the Whales lead down to 3-1, that was all they managed to produce against stingy Whales pitching that had foreign hurlers Edwin Minaya maintaining the lead in a scoreless eighth before closer Dario Veras got the final three outs in the ninth for his fourth save of the season.
Liu (1-4) took the loss after giving up five walks in 7-1/3 innings of work.
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