Hsieh "The Ugly" Jia-shien homered three times in a game for the first time in his career to lift the Macoto Cobras past the Brother Elephants in a 17-4 rout in Hsinchu on Tuesday evening, snapping a four-game losing streak.
The former home run king of the Taiwan Major League showed off his power by going deep against three different Elephants hurlers on a perfect 5-for-5 night with six RBIs to account for nearly 40 percent of the Cobras' offense.
"Everything just seemed to click well tonight," Hsieh said.
The six RBIs he racked up in the game upped his season total to 73, second best in the league behind the Lions' Tilson Brito.
Capitalizing on a wild first for Elephants starter Joey Dawley, who issued two unusual walks in the same inning, the Cobras took the US righty deep twice on two-run blasts by Hsieh and Lin "Wild Hog" Hong-yuan for a quick 5-0 lead.
The Elephants got a run back in the top of the second on Chen Rei-cheng's RBI single, before pulling to within a run of the serpents with a three-run third that saw Liu Geng-shin and Chen connecting on a pair of run-scoring doubles to make it 5-4.
That was as close as the Elephants got, as the Cobras erupted for three runs apiece over the next three innings against three different Elephants pitchers. That made it 14-4, and the Cobra's fifth three-run inning of the game ended the slugfest in the eighth.
Newcomer Andy Van Hekken was credited with his first win in Taiwan since joining the Cobras last month. Van Hekken allowed four runs on six hits over seven frames, thanks to an explosive offense that spotted him 17 runs.
Pocketing the loss for the Elephants was Dawley, who dug his team into an early five-run hole and was pulled after the first inning in his shortest start of the year.
Lions 5, Bears 1
The La New Bears' third baseman's failure to catch a popped fly ball in foul territory gave Kao Chih-kang another chance at the plate and the Lions catcher made the most of it by lining a single to right field.
That started what ended up being a three-run fifth, as the Lions topped the Bears by a 5-1 margin at home in Tainan on Tuesday night to reclaim a half-game lead over the Bears.
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