Tilson Brito drove in six RBIs on a 3-for-5 effort, including a towering grand slam in the bottom of the first, while Pan “Du Du” Wei-luen pitched seven innings of two-run ball to pace the President Lions in a 14-3 trouncing of the La New Bears at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Sunday.
Defending home-run and RBI champ Brito, who wowed the baseball world two weeks ago with 42 combined homers in the annual Home Run Derby during the All-Star weekend, showed off his exceptional power at the plate to lead the Lions past their archrivals in a key win.
As for Du Du, who improved to 9-1 for the season with yet another fine outing from the mound, the win not only lowered his league-leading ERA to 2.12 with a minuscule WHIP (walks and hits per inning) of .96 — also a league-best — but also avenged a tough loss by the Lions to the Bears the night before, salvaging a one-game series split versus the Bears over the weekend.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The cats needed little time finding the sweet spot on the bat as they opened the game with Brito’s grand slam off Bears starter Chang Chih-jia in the bottom of the first to lead it 4-0 before tacking on three more runs over the next two innings to build a surprising 7-0 advantage.
The Bears would get a run back in the top of the third, only to see the Lions double their offensive output in a seven-run sixth that put the game out of reach long before the final out.
Five different Lions hitters had multi-hit games in an 18-hit slugfest, with Brito and infielder Yang Seng collecting three hits apiece to lead the way.
Elephants 4, Whales 1
The red-hot Brother Elephants continued their winning way by taking the weekend finale against the Chinatrust Whales in a 4-1 decision to sweep the two-game set at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tianmu on Sunday night.
Starter Liao Yu-cheng needed 136 pitches to go the distance for the Elephants in his fourth complete-game of the year, setting a new personal mark on both counts in what has become a brilliant season (11-2) for the fourth-year hurler. His renowned underhand delivery baffled the Whales all night long, as they only managed to plate a lone run on seven hits to drop their second in a row after starting off the week with back-to-back wins over the Sinon Bulls.
Doing the damage for the Elephants with their big bats were Kuo Yi-fong and Chen Jiang-heh, who went a combined 5-for-7 with a pair of RBIs to account for half of their team’s total offense.
Olympic Break
With a good number of its top players representing Taiwan in the upcoming Summer Olympics in Beijing, the league will suspend regular-season play for three weeks, with a five-game exhibition series between the national squad and five of the six teams in the league scheduled for this week.
All five of the contests are scheduled to start no later than 1pm to help the national squad adjust to daytime playing conditions, since four of the seven preliminary-round matches for Team Taiwan are scheduled during the day.
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