The President Lions set a new winning-streak record with their 10th consecutive victory after defeating the Chinatrust Whales 6-3 at Tainan on Thursday.
American lefty Bill Pulsipher pitched seven innings of three-run ball on seven singles for the win, upping his season mark to 2-0 in four starts. The former major leaguer was spotted a 3-0 lead after the first two innings before surrendering a pair of runs in the third on three singles, two of which never left the infield, and another run in the fifth for a 3-3 tie.
Pulsipher was given another opportunity by his offense when the Lions struck for three more runs in the bottom of the fifth, sparked by game-MVP Kuo Dai-chi's two-run single off Whales reliever Shen Yu-jeh. And this time, Pulsipher made the most of it by retiring six straight Whales in the sixth and seven before being relieved after 122 pitches.
Lin Yueh-ping tossed a scoreless eighth before closer Tseng Yi-cheng mowed down the side in order in a perfect ninth for the Lions to secure the victory.
Offensively for the big cats, outfielder Wu Jia-rong's 3-for-5 night with an RBI matched Kuo's three-hit effort to lead a normally quiet attack that erupted for 14 hits in the game.
Designated hitter Chen Lien-hong and catcher Kao Chih-kang also had a couple of hits each to give the Lions four players with multi-hit games.
Chinatrust starter Steve Smyth of the US allowed the three early Lions runs in less than two innings of work before being ejected from the game for arguing a call, sending game-loser Chu Wei-ming into the game with minimal warm-up time.
The two errors by the Whales defense also did not help with their cause as each led to an unearned run to make it even harder on the marine creatures in trying to stop the red-hot Lions.
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