Back-to-back wins over the Chinatrust Whales and the Sinon Bulls earlier this week brought the La New Bears to within a half-game of the Macoto Cobras in the latest standings as the first half of the season winds down.
Tuesday night's 5-2 victory over the Sinon Bulls in Hsinchu marked the Bears' eighth win in their last 10 as they took sole possession of the second-place spot in the standings to trail the serpents by a half-game with three regular-season contests remaining for either team.
The game began with the Bears, who were on the road, wasting little time against Bulls starter Tsai Chang-nan with two first-inning runs off the Sinon sinker-baller, courtesy of Tsai Jien-wei's RBI triple and Shih Chih-wei's one-run single up the middle.
PHOTOS: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The Bears plated another run in the top of the second on Huang "Easy" Long-yi's run-scoring base hit to shallow-left before tacking on two more in the fourth against Sinon reliever Kurita Yusuke for a comfortable 5-0 lead.
That was more than enough for Bears starter Hsu Chih-hua, who made the most of a rare start by allowing a run on six scattered hits over five-and-two-thirds innings to record his second win of the year.
The lone run that Hsu surrendered came in the fourth when Chen Chih-wei's opposite-field liner dropped for a single that knocked in the runner from second for the Bulls' first run.
Yang Jin-hsiung's one-run single off Bears reliever Tsai Ying-fong in the bottom of the ninth made it 5-2, and that was as close as the Bulls got as they suffered a key loss that set them back by two-and-a-half games in a tight title race.
"A win would have put us in a two-way tie for second place, trailing the Cobras by one-and-a-half games ... instead, we are now two-and-a-half games back with six games left to play," Bulls skipper Huang Chung-yi said after the game.
Failure to keep his pitches down cost Tsai Chung-nan the game as he fell to 1-2 for the year, allowing three runs on a half-dozen hits in just two-and-one-third innings of play. He might have been affected by a first-inning balk that probably threw off his pitching rhythm.
Bears 6, Whales 5
The Bears forced a 4-4 tie with Chen Fong-min's clutch RBI single off Whales closer Kevin Tolar in the top of the ninth and won it with a pair of runs in the 10th on Tseng Hao-jui's two-run base hit for a 6-5 come-from-behind win in Hsinchu on Monday evening.
Trailing the Whales 0-2 after two innings of play, the disruptive Bears offense roared for three runs in the top of the third on Huang Hsiao-wei's bases-loaded triple off Whales starter Lorenzo Barcelo to claim a 3-2 lead at that point.
But the lead was short-lived. The marine creatures responded with two runs in the fifth and sixth, the first via a solo homer by Yeh Chang-long and the latter by Huang Kwei-yu's sacrifice-fly, to regain a 4-3 lead, setting the stage for Chen's game-tying hit in the ninth.
Picking up the win for the Bears was reliever Hsu Yu-wei, whose three-and-two-thirds innings of hitless relief kept the Bears in the game long enough to give the offense a chance to grind out an extra-inning win.
Taking the loss was Tolar, who blew his first save of the year in three chances since joining the Whales in the middle of this month. He was responsible for all three of the Bears' late-inning runs.
Elephants 5, Lions 2
Huang Cheng-wei's run-scoring single followed by a deadly defensive error by the President Lions scored two eighth-inning runs that broke a 2-2 tie as the Elephants went on to beat the Lions 5-2 in Sinjhuang on Tuesday night.
After two early runs by both teams in the first two innings, the contest suddenly turned into a defensive struggle as neither club was able to score over the next five innings to keep the game tied at two-all heading into the top of the eighth.
The Lions had plenty of scoring chances in the game with 10 hits and six walks off three different Elephants hurlers. But Tilson Brito's two-run blast off Elephants starter Liu Jung-nan in the opening inning was the only hit to spark any run production as they stranded a total of 12 runners to lose this one the hard way.
Todd Moser was credited with the win for his four scoreless innings of three-hit relief, beating his counterpart Pan Jung-rong, who allowed both of the Elephants runners he faced to reach safely on a single and a walk that planted the seed for the Lions' eighth-inning collapse over a losing cause.
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