A five-run second, highlighted by Tilson Brito's bases-clearing three-run double, paved the way for the President Lions, as they downed the Macoto Cobras by an 11-5 margin at Sinjhuang on Saturday night to snap a five-game losing streak.
The Dominican slugger who had been limited to just one RBI during his team's five-game losing skid, knocked in four by going 3-for-5 on the night to champion an 18-hit attack that dealt the Cobras their second loss of the season.
The contest began with the Lions greeting Cobras starter Diegomar Markwell with a five-run second that saw first baseman Kao Guo-ching lead off the inning with a solo home run before Wang Tsu-song's one-run single and Brito's three-run double quickly made it 5-0.
Even though the Cobras fought back by scoring the next four runs to come within one of the Lions by the end of the fifth inning that was as close as they came as the Lions piled on six more runs to run away with a convincing win.
Lions starter Pan "Du Du" Wei-luen earned his first win of the season, allowing four runs on seven hits in 5-2/3 innings. He was not particularly sharp, but still managed to pick up the win with the double-digit run-support.
Pocketing the loss for the Cobras was a wild Markwell, who was responsible for all of the five runs scored by the Lions in the second while allowing five hits and walking four in the two innings he pitched.
Offensively for the Lions, seven different players had multi-hit nights, led by Brito and Wang's three-hit outings.
Whales 4, Bulls 1
Back-to-back scoring singles by Chen Jien-wei and Cheng Chang-ming for the Chinatrust Whales in the bottom of the eighth helped them overcome a slow start to top the Sinon Bulls 4-1 in Tianmu on Saturday.
Trailing 0-1 through the first six frames of the game, the Whales finally got on the board in the seventh on Wang Hsin-min's RBI groundout to second with the base loaded to force a 1-1 tie before Chen and Cheng broke it wide open with singles that drove in three runs in the eighth to lift their team past the Bulls.
A classic pitchers' dual saw the Bulls' Alfredo Gonzalez and the Whales' Lorenzo Barcelo silence the offenses with 13 combined innings of one-run ball. Other than Yu Hsien-ming's solo homer off Barcelo in the top of the first that gave the Bulls a 1-0 which lasted until the seventh, both starters were well in total control of their game.
Things changed in a hurry in the bottom of the seventh. Bulls reliever Yu Wen-pin entered the game at the expense of Gonzalez following a leadoff single by the Whales' Chen off Gonzalez and gave up consecutive walks to load up the bases with one out to set up Wang Hsin-min's game-tying RBI groundout in the Whales win.
Setup man Nee Fu-deh was credited with his first win of the year for the Whales for retiring all four of the Bulls hitters he faced after the rookie took the mound at the start of the eighth with Miguel Saladin getting the final two outs of the game to wrap up the win.
Taking the loss for the Bulls was Shibakusa Hiroshi who bailed out the Bulls in the seventh by fanning Kao Jung-chiang on an inning-ending strikeout with runners at the corners, but failed to replicate his success in the eighth by leaving a couple of pitches up for the Whales to knock in the game-winning runs.
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