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Whales hang on to beat Elephants

President Lions players warm up before their game against the Sinon Bulls in Tianmu on Saturday. PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

The Chinatrust Whales grabbed an early 3-0 lead and held on for dear life to defeat the Brother Elephants by a 3-2 margin in Sinjhuang on Saturday night for their third-straight win.

Kevin Tolar took the mound in the ninth with a 3-1 lead and allowed a run on Wang Jin-yong's two-out single, before getting Chen Huai-shan to pop up in front of the plate with the tying run on first to preserve the win.

The Whales closer recorded a third-straight save despite allowing at least two runners to reach base in each of the three save situations, making it too close for comfort for skipper Hsieh Chang-hehn.

"I wish we didn't have to go through the late-game drama before taking the win," Hsieh said after the game. "But a win is a win and we'll take it."

Carlos Villalobos' two-run double off Elephants starter Chuang Wei-chuan gave the home team a quick 2-0 lead in the opening inning before they tacked on another run in the bottom of the second on Chen Yong-tseh's RBI single to make it 3-0.

That was all the scoring that either team could manage through the first five innings against the solid pitching of Whales starter Lorenzo Barcelo and Elephants reliever Wu Bao-shien who took over for Chuang at the start the third.

Trailing by three, the Elephants finally managed to break through in the sixth on Liu Geng-shin's sacrifice fly with the bases loaded to make it 3-1, before Wang's base hit in the ninth brought them to within a run.

The Elephants had several excellent scoring opportunities in a game in which they actually outhit the Whales by 9 to 8. But going a combined 1-for-5 with runners in scoring positions, including hitting into two devastating double plays, ultimately cost them the game.

Barcelo was credited with his seventh win of the year for throwing five-and-a-third innings of one-run ball thanks to a bullpen that finished strongly to help him beat Chuang, who lasted just two innings on three runs and four hits to drop to 1-4 for the year.

Bulls 5, Lions 0

Kurita Yusuke tossed five scoreless innings of four-hit ball and Yeh Jung-chang knocked in a pair of runs to lead the Sinon Bulls past the President Lions in a 5-0 shutout in Tianmu on Saturday evening.

The win not only ended a nine-game losing skid versus the Lions for the Bulls, but also gave them three wins in a row.

Cheng Jau-han's one-run single in the top of the fifth broke a scoreless tie in a classic pitchers' duel between Kurita and the Lions' Chang Chih-chiang and the Bulls never looked back as they added four more runs over the final two innings off a struggling Lions bullpen to secure the rare shutout against the Lions.

Failure to contain the Bulls offense by the Lions bullpen might have exposed the only weakness for the previously top-ranked Lions, who had relied heavily on a strong rotation consisting of Pan "Du Du" Wei-luen, Pete Munro and Brian Reith.
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