Sun, Jul 30, 2006 page24

• Offense rules as CPBL experiences a runfest

  • By Paul Huang / CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
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  The offense had its way over the past three games in the Chinese Professional Baseball League as teams teed off the opposing pitchers with three straight double-digit scoring contests and a combined total of 42 runs.

  Thursday night's match in Sinjhuang between the league-leading La New Bears and the Macoto Cobras saw the explosive Bears attack ring up 20 hits and 35 total bases against five different serpent hurlers in a lopsided 13-3 La New victory.

  Red-hot slugger Tsai Jien-wei of the Bears was one double shy of hitting for the cycle with a two-run home run, a rare triple, and a single on a 3-for-5 night with four RBIs.

  Teammates Chen Fong-min and Chen Chin-fong also connected for homers in the game with Chen Chin-fong's 15th of the year giving the former major leaguer the league's lead in total homers.

  After taking a quick 1-0 lead in the opening inning on Lin Chih-sheng's RBI single, the Bears put together three four-run innings in the third, sixth, and seventh to build a whopping 13-0 cushion before the Cobras scored three meaningless runs in the final two frames to end the slugfest.

  Ace lefty Wu Si-yo bounced back nicely from his first loss of the year for the Bears with six shutout innings of work in the win to improve to 12-1 for the year.

  None of the five singles he allowed produced any Cobras runs, while the eight strikeouts he recorded made the job on his defense much easier.

  Taking the loss for the Cobras in a game they never seemed comfortable was starter Yang Chi-jia, who allowed five runs on ten hits in four innings, including a pair of homers.

  Cobras 12, Bears 2

  Losing as ugly as they did in Thursday night's laugher, the Cobras returned the favor with a vengeance at once in a 12-2 blowout in Hsinchu on Friday for their first win of the week.

  La New rookie righty Tsai Ying-fong was no match for his second-year counterpart, Lin "Little Chick" En-yu, lasting less than two innings with three runs and four hits to trail the Cobras 3-0 in his shortest outing of the year.

  After Tsai's early exit, the Bears actually kept things in order with reliever Hsu Chih-hua tossing a scoreless third, fourth, and fifth.

  But it all changed in a hurry when the Cobras struck for their fourth run of the game in the sixth on Yang Rei-chih's RBI groundout before blowing the game wide open in an eight-run seventh which featured back-to-back blasts by cleanup man Hsieh "the Ugly" Jia-shien and Australian native Thomas Brice.

  The Bears finally got on the board with a run in the eighth to avoid the shutout, but that did not stop the Cobras' "Little Chick," with a new career-high of 14 strikeouts in the game, from earning his team-best 12th victory of the season.

  Offensively for the serpents, Yang's 3-for-5 night with four RBIs led an attack that rang up 16 hits against the Bears pitching in La New's worst loss of the year.

  The league-leaders had not lost a game by more than eight runs until Friday night's defeat.

  Whales 17, Bulls 6

  A rare inside-the-park homer by Chinatrust Whales outfielder Huang Kwei-yu in the top of the sixth helped this year's Home Run Derby winner hit for the cycle in the Whales' 17-6 rout of the Sinon Bulls at Sinjhuang on Friday evening.

  Huang began the Whales first with a two-run double off Sinon starter Yang Jien-fu and followed with a single to shallow-left in the third before smashing a clean triple off Yang for another run in the fifth to set the table for his dramatic inside-the-park homer.

  He became just the fifth man to accomplish the feat in the league's 17-year history.

  "The coach told me not to worry about it [hitting for the cycle] too much when I was getting ready to bat in the sixth, just take whatever pitch that was thrown to me," Huang said after the game.

  He ended the game with a career-best six RBIs on the night, topping his previous best of five RBIs in a single game.

  Huang's rare effort from the batter's box was not the only thing unusual in the game as fellow shortstop Cheng Chang-ming turned in an amazing triple play in the bottom of the first to wow the crowd by flashing some fine leather work.

  Starter Tseng Jau-hao was credited with his seventh win of the year, despite surrendering six runs on eight hits in just five innings of play, thanks to a 20-hit outburst by his offense.
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