Chen “Golden Warrior” Chih-yuan homered twice and Kobayashi Ryokan struck out a season-high nine to lead the Brother Elephants past the La New Bears 5-3 at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Saturday night to end a five-game losing skid.
It was the first time in nearly four years that the Golden Warrior had multi-homers in a game as injuries had kept him from realizing his full hitting potential since 2004. Now that he is fully recovered and more mature in terms of understanding the pitcher’s mentality, Chen could regain his once-claimed distinction as the league’s premier slugger as he kicks off the month of May with a red-hot 6-for-8 in two games.
The Elephants needed little time solving Hsu Yu-wei with a first-inning run off the La New starter courtesy of Chen Guan-ren’s RBI-single to right that scored the runner from third for a quick 1-0 advantage.
Another single by Chen Guan-ren in the third following a single and a stolen base by the Golden Warrior promptly made it 2-0 in favor of the Elephants before the Bears finally roared for three runs in the top of the sixth on a one-run double by Chen Chin-fong and a two-run blast by Pan Chung-wei to overtake the lead for the first time in a 3-2 game.
Chen Chih-yuan’s solo shot leading off the bottom of the sixth would tie the game at 3-3 before the Elephants added another run in the same inning on Chen Huai-shan’s run-scoring single to give his team their second lead of the night at 4-3.
The Golden Warrior would take the Bears deep once more leading off the bottom of the eighth with his second blast of the game to make it 5-3 before closer Yeh Yong-jeh pitched into and out of trouble by loading up the bases on three straight base hits and getting out of the jam harmlessly by retiring the final two Bears batters on a key strikeout and a lazy fly up the middle to end the game.
Picking up his second win of the season with seven solid innings of three-run ball on six hits was Kobayashi who also received great help form his hitters to produce the win.
As for the Bears, failure to come up the timely hits, especially in the bottom of the ninth proved to be the difference in the game as reliever Huang Chin-chih was tagged with the loss for allowing the Elephants to turn the game around in the decisive sixth.
T-Rex 7, Whales 1
Not squandering a four-run lead as they did on Friday, the dmedia T-Rex beached the Chinatrust Whales 7-1 at the Douliou County Baseball Stadium on Saturday to salvage a 1-1 series-split in their two-game set versus the Whales.
The T-Rex offense capitalized on a throwing error by the Whales second baseman and a wild pitch.
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