Jiang Chih-tson's bases-clearing two-run double broke an 8-all tie in the top of the 10th as the La New Bears overcame two rallies by the President Lions to record an 11-8 road win in Tainan on Wednesday evening.
The victory not only avenged the Bears' tough loss in Tuesday night's series opener, but also helped the defending champs reclaim a half-game lead over the Lions atop the latest standings.
Four uncharacteristic errors by the Lions defense, three of which were charged against third baseman Tilson Brito, proved costly as three of the eleven Bears runs were unearned.
Raul Gonzalez's two-run double off Lions starter Brian Reith quickly put the Bears 2-0 ahead in the top of the first, before the visitors tacked on three more runs in the second on Huang "Easy" Long-yi's two-run double and an RBI single by Gonzalez.
Down by five runs, the Lions would get a run back in the bottom of the second with Liu Fu-hao's solo homer off Bears starter Andrew Loraine to make it 5-1 in favor of the Bears.
The two teams traded a pair of runs each during the third, with Shih Yen-wei's connecting on a two-run triple for the Bears and Brito going deep with a two-run blast off Loraine for his league-leading 29th homer of the season.
Kao Guo-ching's sacrifice fly in the fifth brought the Lions to within three of the Bears in a 7-4 game before the Lions took advantage of an error by the Bears defense to score three in the bottom of the sixth, tieing the game at seven-all.
Brito's wild throw to first on a routine grounder that would have ended the Bears' seventh gave the visitors their second lead of the game at 8-7, before the Lions forced another tie in the bottom of the same inning on Wang Tzu-psong's RBI groundout with the bases loaded.
Neither team scored again during regulation time and the game went into extra innings, in which before Jiang's clutch swing proved decisive.
Suzuki Macoto was credited with the win for tossing four-and-a-third innings of one-run relief on a pair of hits to improve to 2-1 for the year, while his counterpart Tsao Jung-yang suffered the tough loss for allowing Jiang's tie-breaking double in the 10th.
Elephants 12, Cobras 3
Avenging an embarrassing loss to the Macoto Cobras on Tuesday night, the Brother Elephants racked up a dozen runs on 16 hits to trounce the serpents in a rain-shortened 12-3 final score in Sinjhuang on Wednesday night.
The Cobras struck first with three quick runs off Yeh Yong-jeh in the bottom of the first on three straight run-scoring singles.
Those turned out to be the only runs that the Cobras scored the entire game as Brother reliever Wang Jing-li entered in the second and pitched a two-hit gem over the next five innings to record his sixth win of the year.
Offensively for the Elephants, the night belonged to Chen "Golden Warrior" Chih-yuan who batted a perfect 4-for-4 with three RBIs en route to his second game-MVP honor since returning to the Elephants lineup in late-August.
Chen Rei-cheng and Huang Cheng-wei also had three hits apiece in seven evenings of play to account for half the Elephants' hit total.
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