Tseng Jau-hao needed no help from his bullpen in claiming his 12th win of the season, going the distance for the Chinatrust Whales in their 3-2 win over the President Lions at Sinjhuang on Friday night.
The staff ace for the marine creatures earned the complete-game victory by holding the Lions to a pair of runs on seven hits to beat his counterpart Pan "Du Du" Wei-luen, who dropped his ninth of the year despite pitching another quality start.
The contest began with the two teams trading a run each in the top of the first on a run-scoring error by the Whales defense and Mike Lockwood's RBI single before the Lions skidded ahead 2-1 in the top of the third when Yang Send led off the inning with a double and scored one out later on a sacrifice fly by Chen Jia-wei.
PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
That was all the runs that Tseng would allow as he quickly regained his composure to shut down the Lions attack the rest of the way.
Offensively for the Whales, Wang Yi-min's groundout to short scored the runner on third in the bottom of the fifth to tie the game at 2-2 before they took a 3-2 lead in the seventh on a clutch single by Lockwood that drove in Wang for what turned out to be the game-winner.
Whales 8, Lions 3
The Whales also beat the Lions in Sinjhuang on Thursday by an 8-3 margin thanks to an outstanding effort by starter Du Chang-wei.
The former first-round draft choice for the Whales also went the distance for his team by pitching one-run ball through the eighth before allowing two meaningless runs in the ninth on a two-run blast to Tilson Brito.
Du knew he was on a roll when he retired nine of the first ten batters he faced in his best performance of the season by far.
Back-to-back RBI doubles off Lions starter Hansel Izquierdo by Huang Kwei-yu and Wang Hsin-min broke a scoreless tie in the bottom of the fourth to give the Whales a 2-0 lead before the Lions made it 2-1 in the fifth with an unearned run off Du due to an error by third baseman Chen Yong-tseh.
Chen later redeemed himself with a two-run double in the sixth to give the Whales a 4-1 lead before they really let the Lions have it with a four-run seventh, highlighted by Chi Jung-lin's solo shot off reliever Chang Chih-chiang and designated hitter Tseng Han-chou's two-run double.
The home run by Brito gave him five straight games in which he had homered at least once, tying the Dominican slugger with Jose Oliva and former Whales Chen Wen-pin for the league record in consecutive games with at least one home run.
Cobras 2, Elephants 1
Thomas Brice's two-out single off Elephants reliever Chuang Wei-chuan with men on first and second scored the game-winning run in the bottom of the tenth as the Macoto Cobras topped the Elephants in extra innings at Tienmu on Friday night to remain in the hunt for a postseason berth.
The continuation of a rain-suspended game from earlier this month had the Elephants hanging onto a 1-0 lead from the top of the fourth through the seventh with right-hander Yeh Yong-jeh throwing shutout ball for three innings before the Cobras' Hsieh "the Ugly" Jia-shien went deep against the rookie for a game-tying solo homer in the bottom of the eighth.
After a scoreless ninth by both clubs the Cobras went on the offensive again with Wang Chuan-jia tattooing a pitch from Yeh for a standup double to set the stage for Brice's game-clinching swing.
Cobras reliever Lee Ming-jin was credited with his seventh win of the season for his two innings of shutout relief, beating and masking an otherwise solid effort by Yeh who fell to a lowly 3-7 for the year.
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