Huang “Easy” Long-yi hit his record-setting 10th career leadoff home run and Mike Johnson tossed six-and-a-third innings of one-run ball to pace the La New Bears past the self-destructing Chinatrust Whales in a 5-2 win in Hsinchu on Sunday.
Not only was the win the Bears’ eighth in their last 10 games, but it also helped them swept the two-game series against the marine creatures to keep pace with the top-ranked President Lions in the latest standings.
Huang’s solo blast off Whales starter Nee Fu-deh on the second pitch of the game quickly put the visiting Bears ahead 1-0 before Tseng Hao-jui drove in two more runs following a throwing error on what would have been an inning-ending out that made it 3-0 in favor of the Bears in the top of the first.
Kuo Dai-yong’s opposite-field single after Kang Tseh-wei’s double in the bottom of the third would score Kang from second to cut the Bears lead to 3-1.
That was all the runs that either team would produce with Nee retiring 12 of the next 13 Bears hitters he faced and Johnson holding his ground in a scoreless fourth and fifth before the Bears capitalized on the third of five Whales errors in the game to plate another run in the sixth.
After the Bears upped their lead to 5-1 in the seventh courtesy of the Whales’ fifth error of the game, the sloppy Whales finally came through with ninth-inning run to save face by making the final score more respectable.
The sloppy play by the Whales defense ultimately proved too much for the offense to overcome as all but one of the five Bears runs in the game was earned.
Improving to a league-best 4-0 for the season was Johnson who allowed a run on five hits while fanning six and walking four to beat a winless Nee (0-3), who pitched well enough for the win with only one allowed run on five hits in 5-1/3 innings of work.
Lions 5, T-Rex 3
Kuo Dai-chi’s pinch-hit, two-run home run capped a four-run sixth that broke a 1-1 tie for the President Lions as they went on to top the dmedia T-Rex 5-3 in Tainan on Sunday for their third straight win of the week.
Tilson Brito and Chen Lien-hong also homered during the decisive sixth with back-to-back solo blasts off T-Rex starter Chen Jien-fu to make a winner out of Lions setup man Shen Bo-chang who entered during the sixth in relief of starter Gregory Wiltshire and pitched 1-1/3 innings of scoreless relief to register his first win of the season.
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