Chen Lien-hong homered for the second-straight game, Nelson Figueroa pitched eight effective innings of two-run ball and the President Lions topped the Sinon Bulls 6-4 in Tainan on Wednesday evening to win their seventh in a row.
The runners-up in last year's Taiwan Series are peaking at the right time and increased their lead over the second-placed La New Bears to three-and-a-half games heading into the final week of the regular season.
The visiting Bulls went 2-0 up early on with a first-inning run on a sacrifice fly by cleanup man Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan and Chang Jien-ming's RBI single up the middle in the top of the third.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
That lead was erased by the bottom of the third, when the Lions strung three consecutive singles together off Sinon starter Kurita Yusuke to even things up at 2-2. They then pulled away with four unanswered runs over the next five frames, highlighted by Chen's solo blast in the fifth and Kao Guo-ching's two-run triple in the eighth to lead 6-2.
Trailing by four, the Bulls scored a pair of runs in the top of the ninth by leading off the inning with a pair of base hits to place runners on second and third with no outs against Tsao Jung-yang and knocking in both on a wild pitch by the Lions closer and an RBI groundout from Lin Tsung-nan. But that was as close as they got, as Tsao settled in and retired the final two Bulls to secure the win.
Picking up his third win in as many starts was Figueroa, who is unbeaten at 3-0 since his Taiwan debut on Sept. 15th. He allowed two runs on nine hits while fanning five and walking two.
Suffering the loss on behalf of the Bulls was Kurita, who ran up the pitch count to 110 in just five-and-a-third innings of work with four runs on seven hits and was pulled from the game earlier than he would have liked.
Elephants 7, Whales 3
Winning their third-straight game for only the second time in this rebuilding year, the Brother Elephants bested the Chinatrust Whales 7-3 in Sinjhuang on Wednesday -- virtually eliminating the Whales from postseason play in the process.
As was the case with the game between the Bulls and the Lions, the losing team struck first as the Whales' Shih Jin-sho connected for a two-out single off Brother starter Liao Yu-cheng for a 2-0 lead in the top of the second.
Those turned out to be the only runs that Liao would give up in seven solid innings as he two-hit the Whales before being relieved in the eighth en route to his fourth win of the year.
Offensively for the Elephants, the heart of the order picked up the scoring slack on the night by going a combined 10-for-14 at the plate, with Chen "the Golden Warrior" Chih-yuan grinding out four hits and Peng "Chia Chia" Cheng-min and Chen Rei-chen chipping in three apiece to account for five of the seven runs scored.
Taking the loss for the Whales was starter Chu Wei-ming, who lasted only two innings on three runs and seven hits for his second setback of the year.
The Whales will need to run the table in their remaining six games and hope for the league-leading Lions to lose at least seven of their final nine to qualify for the playoffs, which start in about two weeks.
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