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Munro, Lions blank Whales

Pete Munro pitched his second complete-game shutout in a row and Yang Song-hsuen knocked in two runs to pace the President Lions past the Chinatrust Whales 5-0 in Tainan on Thursday.

The US right-hander improved to 11-4 for the year with the five-hit win as the Lions regained a two-game lead over the second-place La New Bears in the standings, while lowing his league-leading ERA to a season-low 1.61.

The Lions' Yang had a big night at the plate as his two-run single with two outs capped a four-run second, which set the tone early in the game for the home hosts as they cruised to their seventh win in the last eight games.

A fielding error by Whales second baseman Wang Yi-min on a chopper to second in what would have been an inning-ending out gave the Lions a second chance against the Whales starter Nee Fu-deh.

The Lions capitalized on Wang's mistake by connecting for back-to-back RBI singles and a walk before Yang's two-run base hit racked up four unearned runs.

Kao Guo-ching's run-scoring single in the fifth made it 5-0 in favor of the Lions and that was more than ample for Munro as he held his ground to cool off a Whales lineup that had won three of their last four coming into Thursday's contest.

Trailing 0-5, the Whales' best chance to break up the shutout came in the top of the sixth, when Kao Jung-chiang stretched a single into a double to put himself in scoring position with Carlos Villalobos up next.

But Munro was able to get Villalobos to ground out to short to end the last legitimate scoring threat for the Whales, retiring the final 10 Whales hitters in order to complete the shutout win.

Picking up the tough loss for the Whales was Nee, who allowed only one earned run and four unearned runs on seven hits in as many innings for his 11th defeat of the year, falling victim to a lack of run support.

Elephants 2, Bulls 8

Scoring early and often, the Sinon Bulls easily handled the Brother Elephants in an 8-2 final in Taichung on Thursday to extend their winning streak to four games.

Yang Jien-fu pitched seven effective innings for the home team by allowing a pair of unearned runs on seven hits to pocket his fifth win of the year.

Both of the runs he gave up came during the fifth, when his infield committed three errors to help reduce the Bulls' 3-0 lead to 3-2.

Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan was responsible for two of the three errors in the top of the fifth. But the veteran Sinon third baseman would redeem himself immediately with a two-run homer in the bottom of the same inning to quickly put his club ahead 5-2.

The Bulls picked up another run in the sixth on a run-scoring error by the Elephants defense before striking for two more in the eighth to concluding all the scoring for the game.

Elephants starter Wu Jung-yi was charged with the loss for failing to keep the Bulls in check as he lasted just one-and-two-thirds innings in his shortest start of the year.
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