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Whales climb out of the cellar with win over Elephants

Chinatrust Whales third baseman Chen Chia-hung lays out for a grounder off the bat of Brother Elephants batter Chen Jui-chang in Wednesday's game at Sinjhuang. PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

Lorenzo Barcelo pitched well into the seventh and Chen Chang-ming knocked in a pair of runs with a pinch-hit triple to lead the Chinatrust Whales past the Brother Elephants in a 5-2 win at Sinjhuang on Wednesday night.

The victory not only salvaged a 1-1 split in the two-game set against the Elephants for the marine creatures, but also helped them climb out of the cellar by switching places with the Elephants, the new last-placed club in the latest league standings.

Back-to-back RBI-singles by Kao Jung-chiang and Wang Hsin-min in the opening frame quickly put the Whales ahead 2-0 before the Elephants halved the deficit in the top of the second on Antonio Alvarez's solo homer off Barcelo.

After a scoreless third, the Whales would strike again on consecutive doubles by Chen Jia-hong and Yeh Chang-long to make it 3-1, only to see Alvarez pull his team to within one point of the Whales in the top of the sixth with his second homer of the day off Barcelo in a 3-2 contest.

That was as close as the Elephants would get as Cheng sealed off the win for the Whales in the eighth with his pinch-hit two-run triple in the eventual win.

Hitless relief outings by Whales lefties Luo Jien-ming and Nee Fu-deh made it very tough for the Elephants to rally as Luo picked up his first hold of the season while Nee pocketed his fifth save of the year to preserve the third win for Barcelo this season.

Suffering the tough loss for the Elephants was submariner Liao Yu-cheng, who allowed five runs on 10 hits over seven-andtwo-thirds innings of work to drop to 1-3 for the year.

Elephants 8, Whales 7

Tuesday night's series opener in Sinjhuang saw the Elephants build an 8-1 lead midway through the seventh before they held off a vicious six-run rally by the Whales to escape with an 8-7 win in the end.

Chen Huai-shan's two-run single up the middle with the bases loaded in the top of the second put the Elephants up in a hurry at 5-0, before the Whales responded with a run of their own in the bottom of the third on Kao Jung-chiang's sacrifice fly to make it 5-1 in favor of the Elephants.

Chen Huai-shan's RBI groundout to short, followed by Chen Rei-chen's run-scoring single off Brother reliever Su Tseh-yi would put the Elephants ahead 7-1 in the sixth before they tacked on one more in the top of the seventh for a seemingly commanding 8-1 cushion.

An easy Elephants win was not how this game turned out, as the Whales exploded for six unanswered runs over the final three frames to pull within a run of the Elephants.

Chen Jia-hong's double off Elephants closer Wang Jing-li with runners on first and second would have scored the tying run if it had not been for an excellent throw to the plate by the Elephants defense that gunned down the runner at home to prevent the tying run from scoring.

Game-winner Liu Jung-nan was credited with his fifth win of the season after watching his bullpen nearly squander a seven-run lead with some unwelcomed late-inning drama.

It was his fifth straight win after starting off the season with a 0-2 mark.

Tagged with the loss for the Whales was newcomer Jose Matos of the US, whose Taiwan debut was a rather forgettable one as he lasted just one out into the second allowing five runs (four earned) on four hits.
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