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Lions recover from four down to top Elephants 8-5

Lin Chin-chang of the Chinatrust Whales slides back into home plate and scores in a Chinese Professional Baseball League game against the dmedia T-Rex in Sinjhuang, Taipei County, on Wednesday. PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

Kao Guo-ching’s two-run single with the bases loaded capped a seven-run seventh as the President Lions rallied from four down to top the Brother Elephants 8-5 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium on Wednesday night.

Trailing 1-5 against a stingy Kobayashi Ryokan, who allowed a lone run to the Lions through the sixth on four hits, the home Lions seemed doomed to suffer their second straight loss of the week.

That was when the Elephants starter began to show signs of fatigue, issuing a pair of walks on top of a single to load the bases in the bottom of the seventh with no outs.

He would leave the game as the candidate for the win before fellow reliever Wu Bao-shien served two more walks and a two-run single to the Lions’ Kuo Dai-chi, cutting the lead to one. Yeh Yong-jeh allowed a game-tying walk and the eventual two-run single to Kao put the Lions ahead for good.

The loss further exposed the Elephants’ weakness in mid-inning relief, as neither reliever was able to keep the Lions in check while squandering the four-run lead.

Picking up the surprising win for the Lions was closer Luther Hackman, who tossed a scoreless final two innings for his first victory since joining the Lions two weeks ago, beating Wu in a game the Elephants should have won.

WHALES 10, T-REX 7

Wilton Veras’ three-run home run off Cheng Yu-liang in the top of the eighth sparked a five-run outburst that helped the Chinatrust Whales beat the dmedia T-Rex 10-7 at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Wednesday.

The win not only helped the marine creatures avenge a disheartening 5-6 loss at the hands of the T-Rex the night before, but also salvaged a series-split for them.

The five errors committed by the dmedia defense also contributed to the loss, as half of the 10 runs put up by the Whales were unearned in a game in which the T-Rex actually outhit their opponents by a whopping 18-7 margin.

Setup man Chu Wei-ming was credited with his second win of the season with two-and-one-third innings of one-run relief, thanks to the big bat of Veras, who broke a 5-5 tie wide open in the decisive eighth.

It was fortunate for the Whales that their lead was five runs, as the T-Rex managed to score twice more in the bottom of the same inning to fall within three. They actually had the tying run on deck before Whales closer Lorenzo Barcelo retired the final three hitters in order to preserve the win.
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