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CPBL: Elephants make rambunctious season start

Liao Yu-cheng of the Brother Elephants pitches during their Chinese Professional Baseball League game against the President Lions at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Wednesday. PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

The Brother Elephants opened their 2008 season with an impressive performance as they tamed the President Lions in an 8-0 shutout at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Wednesday evening.

Starter Liao Yu-cheng tossed a two-hit gem with 11 strikeouts in his first career complete-game shutout win, while fellow sluggers Chen "Golden Warrior" Chih-yuan and Chen Guan-ren knocked in three runs on a combined 3-for-7 to lead the men in their familiar golden uniform in a rambunctious start.

The visiting Elephants needed only three at-bats to break the ice as the "Golden Warrior" ripped a lining single up the middle off Lions starter Chang Chih-chiang to score Huang Cheng-wei, who led off the game with a walk and reached second to score a fielder's choice.

Two of the next three Elephants hitters also connected with base hits off Chang to quickly make it 4-0 in favor of the Elephants.

After Brother added another run in the top of the second on an RBI-groundout by Chen Guan-ren to help his team lead it 5-0, the game suddenly turned into a pitchers' duel over the next six innings as neither offense was able to solve Liao and Chang until the top of the ninth with the Elephants mustering three consecutive two-out singles off Lions reliever Tsao Jung-yang to make it 8-0.

The Lions were not totally out of the game in this one, as they managed to have runners in scoring position in three different innings with Liao issuing six walks on the night. But none of the runners were able to reach home, as Liao would promptly come through with clutch strikeouts or induce timely grounders to allow the Elephants defense to turn a pair of double plays to keep the shutout intact.

Suffering the loss on the Lions' behalf was Chang, who did not pitch as poorly as the final score would indicate. Two of his five allowed runs over seven-plus innings were unearned owing to two defensive errors.

Bears 6, T-Rex 4

A pair of costly errors by the dmedia T-Rex defense that led to four unanswered runs for the La New Bears in the bottom of the eighth turned a 2-4 deficit into a 6-4 win for the Bears in Kaohsiung on Wednesday night.

Failure to cover second by T-Rex second baseman Huang Shih-hao on a routine grounder to short, all with two outs, triggered a series of bad throws by the dmedia defense ultimately scored the tying runs for the home Bears before they went ahead with two more in the same inning to lead it 6-4.

That was all Bears closer Tsai Ying-fong needed to pick up his first save of the year with a scoreless ninth to preserve the win for fellow bullpen mate Lee Fong-hua, who one-hit the T-Rex over four scoreless innings of sound relief.

Offensively for the victorious Bears, five different hitters collected multi-hit games, with team captain Huang "Easy" Long-yi leading the pack with three and an RBI.

Tagged with the loss in a game dmedia should have won was reliever Chen Jien-fu, who allowed all four of the Bears runs in the decisive eighth (only one earned) for his first defeat of the season.
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