Back-to-back wins over the previously red-hot La New Bears in Tainan on Thursday and Friday gave the President Lions their first series sweep in nearly a month as they attempted to climb out of the cellar by winning four of their last five.
Friday night's 7-2 win over the defending champs was a nice sequel to Thursday's 5-1 triumph that saw staff ace Pan "Du Du" Wei-luen win his team-best fourth of the season by silencing the Bears bats to a lone run on a half-dozen hits.
Leading the way for the Lions in Friday night's contest was starter Peter Munro, who overcame a two-run first by three-hitting the Bears over the next seven frames for his second win of the year.
PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YI, TAIPEI TIMES
The game began with the Bears striking first in the top of the first when Chen Chin-fong slapped an opposite-field single off Munro for a pair of runs and a quick 2-0 lead before the Lions roared back with three runs of their own off Bears starter Gary Rath in the bottom of the same inning to claim a 3-2 advantage after one inning of play.
Neither team would score again over the next three innings against Munro and Rath until the Lions struck for three more off Rath in the bottom of the fifth on Tilson Brito's solo blast leading off the inning followed by Liu Fu-hao's two-run shot that chased the Bears starter.
The Lions would add another run in the eighth to make it 7-2 and that was how it ended as Munro pitched deep into the game before Lin Cheng-fong tossed a scoreless ninth to make this one official.
Picking up the win was Munro, his second of the year, as the American righty evened his season mark to 2-2, beating fellow countryman Rath, who suffered his second defeat of the year by allowing six runs (five earned) on eight hits over 4-1/3 innings to fall to a 4-2 record.
Whales 5, Bulls 2
Tseng Jau-hao also won his fourth game of the season by throwing seven strong innings of two-run ball (both unearned) to lead the Chinatrust Whales over the Sinon Bulls in a 5-2 decision at Hsinchu on Friday evening.
The staff ace for the Whales, who lowered his earned run average to a decent 3.52 mark, was in total control of his game, allowing five scattered singles in a dominant outing in his team-best fourth win.
The Whales could have had a shutout if it had not been for the two errors in the game that led to both of the Bulls' runs.
Also dominating was Whales reliever Nee Fu-deh, who entered in the eighth in relief of Tseng with two near-perfect innings of work for his third save of the year.
Offensively for the Whales, Chen Jien-wei went deep against Sinon starter Iba Tomokazu for his third home run of the season on a 3-for-5 night to lead an attack that pounded out ten hits off three different Sinon hurlers.
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