Liao Yu-cheng pitched seven sharp innings of shutout ball while Wang Sheng-wei went 3-for-4 with an RBI to lead the Brother Elephants past the Chinatrust Whales 4-0 at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Friday night.
The win not only made Liao the first local player to register 10 wins for the season, but also snapped a dreadful five-game losing skid for the Elephants, who began the second half with a solid 6-4 record before stumbling into their recent slump.
Chen Jiang-heh’s RBI single to the opposite-field got things going in the right direction for the Elephants in the top of the third before Wang slapped another baseball through the infield that scored two more runs to put his team ahead 3-0.
The Elephants tacked on their fourth run of the game with Chen Guan-ren’s one-run single in the eighth to conclude all the scoring.
Danny Core took over the mound in the eighth after Liao had hurled 113 pitches and retired all six of the hitters he faced in order to preserve the shutout win for the Elephants starter.
As for the Whales, inability to adapt to Liao’s underhand delivery, particularly with runners in scoring position, left them empty-handed on all four scoring chances in the game, wasting a decent outing from starter Steven Watkins, who allowed four runs on nine hits over seven-and-one-third innings to lose his ninth game of the year.
ALL-STAR WEEKEND
No regular-season games are scheduled for this weekend, as the All-Star Game comes to Taichung today at the newly finished Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium to showcase the best and brightest stars in the league in the annual mid-summer classic. The game starts at 5pm.
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