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Whales hammer Bears behind Barcelo's pitching

Chinatrust Whales designated hitter Tseng Han-chou hits one of his two home runs during the Whales' 7-1 win over the La New Bears on Sunday in Tianmu. PHOTO: CHU PEI-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

Tseng Han-chou homered twice and Lorenzo Barcelo pitched seven solid innings of one-run ball to propel the Chinatrust Whales past the La New Bears in a 7-1 win in Tianmu on Sunday night.

The victory not only extended the Whales' winning streak to three games, but also gave them sole possession of second place in the latest standings, just a half-game behind the Macoto Cobras.

Wasting no time against the defending champs, the marine creatures greeted the Bears with a pair of opening-inning runs off starter Hsu Wen-hsiung. Tseng's sharp grounder to second skidded past the Bears second baseman and scored the runners on second and third for a quick 2-0 lead.

Chen Chin-fong's solo blast off Barcelo, his league-leading seventh home run of the season, would halve the Whales lead at 2-1 in the top of the fourth before Chinatrust scored in the next three frames to build a 6-1 lead en route to the eventual 7-1 final.

Tseng's first homer of the game came in the bottom of the fourth to reclaim a two-run lead for the Whales at 3-1. Fellow slugger Chen Jien-wei followed with a two-run shot over the right field wall to give the Whales a commanding 5-1 lead.

Keep the Bears well in check was Barcelo, who pitched brilliantly for seven innings on five hits, six strikeouts and one walk in his second win of the season.

Taking the loss was the Bears' Hsu, who seemed bothered by the two unearned runs the Whales scored in the first on the error by second baseman Lin Jin-ping.

Bulls 5, Lions 0

Yang Jien-fu made the most of his first start this year by throwing seven innings of shutout ball to help the Sinon Bulls beat the President Lions 5-0 in Taichung on Sunday night.

The staff ace and former Taiwan Series MVP for the Bulls, who was sidelined for most of last season and had been limited to a handful of relief appearances so far this year, scattered five singles in seven innings of work before relievers Tsai Chung-nan and Yu Wen-pin chipped in with a scoreless eighth and ninth to keep the shutout victory intact.

Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan also broke a 14-game home run drought by going deep against the Lions' Shen Bo-chang in the bottom of the third for his first blast of the season.

The Bulls veteran recorded his fifth multi-RBI game of the season by collecting three on his home run. Hard-hitting catcher Yeh Jung-chang racked up a pair of RBIs on a 1-for-3 night.

The six double plays the Bulls turned in the game prevented the Lions' seven hits from scoring a run and tied a league record for the most in a single contest.

The loss by the Lions was their sixth in a row.
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