Kobayashi Ryokan pitched eight solid innings of one-run ball and Chen Guan-ren went a perfect 4-for-4 with a pair of RBIs as the Brother Elephants trounced the Sinon Bulls 6-1 at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Friday night.
The Japanese hurler, who improved to 7-6 for the season with the win, took a four-hit shutout two outs into the eighth before surrendering a walk and back-to-back singles for the lone Sinon run in the game.
Chen set a new career mark for most four-hit games in a season with his fifth four-hit outing of the year so far, making the ball look as big as a grapefruit on a night he could do no wrong.
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Lin Ming-hsien’s bases-loaded groundout got the Elephants on the board in the bottom of the second before Chen’s RBI-single made it 3-0 in favor of the Elephants.
They would add to the lead by two in the fifth on a two-run single by Chen Rei-chen before Chen Guan-ren’s liner to left in the sixth scored the Elephants’ sixth run of the ball game.
That meant more than enough run support for Kobayashi as the Elephants cruised past the Bulls for the win.
T-REX 13, LIONS 9
Hsieh “the Ugly” Jia-shien’s grand slam blew an otherwise close game wide open in the top of the ninth as the dmedia T-Rex topped the President Lions 13-9 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium on Friday.
Before all was said and done, the rain-delayed contest — which ran more than five-and-a-half hours and did not end until early yesterday morning — featured 22 combined runs on 28 hits between the two clubs.
Trailing 8-13 following Hsieh’s grand slam, the home Lions managed to score a run without getting a hit when dmedia closer Hector Almonte walked three to load up the bases before Kuo Dai-chi drew the fourth walk of the inning off Hsu Chu-jien to force in a run.
That was as close as the Lions got as Chen Lien-hong, who represented the tying run at the plate, popped a lazy fly ball to right with the bases juiced for the game-ending out.
Picking up the wild win was dmedia reliever Lee Ming-jin, who gave up a run on two hits over three innings of work to beat the Lions’ Kao Jien-san. Kao allowed a run on three hits over two innings for his third loss of the season.
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