Hitters dominated on Friday night with the President Lions outplaying the Brother Elephants in a 10-1 rout in Sinjhuang while the Sinon Bulls embarrassed the Chinatrust Whales in an 11-1 slaughter in Douliou to sweep the two-game series.
The Lions lineup spotted starter Chang Chih-chiang an early 6-0 lead after just two innings of play, the highlights being Kao Guo-ching's RBI double in the first and Yang Seng's two-run homer in the second. They never looked back.
The Elephants would score what turned out to be their lone run of the game in the bottom of the fourth on a timely two-out single by Liu Geng-hsin off Chang to avoid a shutout. But that was as close as the Elephants' hitters could get as far as threatening Chang, who in turn tossed eight spectacular innings of five-hit ball for his fourth win of the year.
Yang Dong-yi's RBI double and Wang Tsu-song's three-run blast in a four-run seventh were the icing on the cake for the visiting Cats as they finished strongly to leave no doubt in anybody's mind as to which was the better team on the night.
Liu Jung-nan was tagged with the loss for the Elephants in a game in which not much went their way, allowing six runs on four hits in just one-and-a third innings of work before three of his bullpen mates joined the onslaught in a contest that was over long before the final out.
Bulls 11, Whales 1
The Sinon Bulls won their third straight and the sixth in their last seven in an 11-1 trouncing of the Chinatrust Whales at Douliou on Friday evening, thanks to an outstanding effort by starter Alfredo Gonzalez.
The Dominican righty won his ninth game of the year with seven strong innings of play and allowed only one run on five hits to keep the Whales hitters at bay for most of the game.
Hsu Guo-long's three-run home run off Whales starter Nee Fu-deh quickly put the Bulls ahead 3-0 in the bottom of the first before they would double the lead two innings later on a solo homer by Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan and consecutive run-scoring singles by Lin Hsun-wei and Yeh Jung-chang to make it 6-0.
Even though the Whales managed to claim one of the runs back in the top of the fourth on a sacrifice fly to deep-center by Kuo Dai-yong that scored Wang Yi-min, who led off the inning with a single, that was the extent of their scoring. Lee Guo-ching came on with two innings of scoreless relief to secure the win.
Offensively for the rampaging Bulls, four different players had multi-hit games, led by Hsu's three-for-four performance with three RBIs. The Prince batted two-for-five and knocked in a run to up his total to 75 this season.
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