Long balls played a huge role in the Sinon Bulls' pair of wins over the Chinatrust Whales at Douliou as they kept pace with the league-leading Macoto Cobras to trail them by only two-and-a-half games with less than 10 games remaining in the first half of the season.
Tseng Hua-wei's leadoff homer off Whales starter Nee Fu-deh in Wednesday night's contest was the difference in the game as the Bulls took a quick 1-0 lead and held on for a 1-0 shutout.
The speedy Bulls outfielder got a hold of an offering from Nee and deposited it into the right-field seats for an opposite-field homer that put his team ahead 1-0 in Tseng's first at-bat.
PHOTO: CHAN CHAO-YANG, TAIPEI TIMES
That was more than ample for Sinon starter Tsai Chung-nan as the former number-one draft pick who made a big name for himself with a nasty splitter that drops over a foot as it reaches the plate, threw six innings of four-hit ball before his teammates took over for three impeccable innings to keep the shutout intact.
It was Tsai's first win in nearly two injury-plagued years and no one could be more pleased than skipper Huang Chung-yi whose decision to keep Tsai on the rotation might have paid off for the Bulls heading into the final stretch of the first half.
Standing opposite Tsai was Nee who was equally impressive in his first start of the season as he pitched six solid innings of three-hit ball while fanning six in a losing cause. Nee is now 3-7 for the year despite having a team-best ERA of 2.82 thus far.
Bulls 4, Whales 1
Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan also went deep against the Whales pitching with his fifth and sixth blast of the season in Tuesday night's match to cap a four-run rally that gave the Bulls a 4-1 win.
The slugger who accounted for three of the Bulls four runs on the night led off the top of the seventh with a monstrous solo shot to deep-center that forced a 1-1 tie for the visitors and followed with his second homer of the game an inning later, this time a two-run blast over the right-field wall, to give the Bulls a 4-1 cushion.
The prince's late-game heroics made a winner out of fellow lefty Kurita Yusuke of Japan who tossed two hitless innings in relief of starter Yang Jien-fu for his second "W" of the season.
Suffering the tough loss for the Whales was starter Lorenzo Barcelo who served up both of Chang's home runs to drop to an even 3-3 mark for the year. The Dominican hurler allowed all four runs by the Bulls on as many hits over 7-2/3 innings in a game he could have won had the run support been there for him.
The defeat by the Whales sent them spiraling further down the standings as their recent losing skid hit eight and counting.
Elephants 3, Lions 0
Joey Dawley threw seven scoreless innings of two-hit ball and Chen Huai-shan knocked in a pair of runs with his second homer of the season to propel the Brother Elephants to a 3-0 road win over the President Lions in on Tainan Wednesday evening.
The American was brilliant in the Elephants' first game in nearly two rain-delayed weeks by allowing only one runner to reach second before fellow reliever Todd Moser finished off with a scoreless eighth and ninth to preserve the shutout win.
As for Chen, the long ball off Lions starter Pete Munro in the bottom of the first set the tone early in the game as the Elephants cruised to an easy win to remain in contention for the first-half title.
Munro allowed two runs on eight hits in six frames with four strikeouts and a pair of walks.
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