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CPBL: Elephants streak fizzles in home defeat to Lions

Yang Tung-yi of the President Lions jumps to avoid a crash after putting out Chen Huai-shan of the Brother Elephants in their Chinese Professional Baseball League game in Hsinchu on Wednesday evening. The Lions won 4-3. PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

Back-to-back walks by Yeh Yong-jeh scored the go-ahead run for the President Lions as they narrowly defeated the Brother Elephants 4-3 at the Hsinchu Municipal Baseball Stadium on Wednesday night, snapping the Elephants’ four-game winning streak.

After wet weather led to three rainouts around the league on Monday and Tuesday, some regular-season action finally got underway on Wednesday with the Elephants hosting the Lions in search of their fifth straight win.

And the five-day rest for both clubs definitely took its toll early in the game, as neither offense managed to do much against the stellar pitching of starters Lin Yueh-pin of the Lions and Kobayashi Ryokan of the Elephants, with Lin taking a 2-0 shutout into the seventh.

The two-run Lions lead would vanish in a hurry because of a deadly error by the defense that led to a pair of unearned runs that tied things up at 2-2 in the bottom of the seventh.

But thanks to a wild Yeh, who entered in the eighth in relief of Kobayashi, the top-ranked Lions were able to reclaim their second two-run lead of the game with an RBI-single from Liu Fu-hao before the Elephants reliever issued two straight walks to force in the second run of the inning that made it 4-2 in favor of the Lions.

Even though the Elephants would score once more in the bottom of the eighth on Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min’s sacrifice-fly to come within a run of the Lions, that was as close as they got with Lions closer Ricky Stone recording the final six outs of the game to preserve the narrow lead.

Picking up the dramatic win was Lin, who allowed two unearned runs on four hits over seven innings for his sixth straight victory of the year.

He remained unbeaten at 6-0 with a fastball clocked well past 140kph and a slider that breaks late and sharp, fooling most hitters around the league.

As for the Elephants, Kobayashi was hit with the loss despite going seven-and-two-third strong frames with four allowed runs (three earned) on six hits in his seventh straight quality start of the season.

Bears 5, Bulls 0

The red-hot La New Bears continued their recent success by claiming their third straight win in a 5-0 blanking of the Sinon Bulls on the road at the Taichung Municipal Baseball Stadium on Wednesday evening.

Mike Johnson needed only 99 pitches to go the distance in a two-hit gem and become the league’s first nine-game winner, baffling the Sinon hitters throughout the entire game by getting ahead in the count early and often.

Doing the damage from the plate for the Bears were Chen Fong-min and Shih Chih-wei with two RBIs apiece, accounting for the bulk of their team’s offensive production.

The Bears took an early 2-0 lead in the top of the first on the strength of RBI-singles by Shih and Pan Chung-wei off Bulls starter Yang Jien-fu and never looked back.

They would eventually tack on three more runs late in the game, which was a pitchers’ duel through the seventh, but that did not matter much for the Bulls, since Johnson never showed any sign of weakness that would allow them back in the game.
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