Continuing their mastery over the opposition, the Brother Elephants doubled up on the Sinon Bulls by a 4-2 margin at the Taichung Municipal Baseball Stadium on Thursday to sweep their two-game series.
It was their fourth straight victory and seventh in the past eight. They are now in an all-out effort to contend for the second-half title as they trail the top-ranked La New Bears and the Uni-President Lions (tied for first) by just one game in the standings.
Leading the way with yet another fine performance on the mound was Elephants starter Tseng Jia-min, who allowed a run on three hits over six-and-two-third effective innings of play to win his sixth of the season. Other than a few control problems from time to time, with five walks issued, Tseng managed to take a 4-0 shutout into the seventh, before giving up a run to lose the shutout bid.
PHOTO: CHAN CHAO-YANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Offensively for the men in the golden uniforms, Chen “Golden Warrior” Chih-yuan batted a solid two-for-four, with a home run and two RBIs in his fourth straight multi-hit outing.
LIONS 5, T-REX 4
Kuo Jung-yo’s two-run double capped a four-run fifth that broke open a 1-1 tie for the Uni-President Lions and they held on to defeat the dmedia T-Rex 5-4 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium on Thursday night.
The win propelled the home Cats to a tie for first with the idle Bears, who saw their half-game lead erased as the race for the elusive second-half title heightened, with a lone game separating the top three clubs in the league.
Picking up the win in his first career start was Lions lefty Pan Jung-rong, who surrendered a run on five hits over five-and-two-third innings of work to beat his counterpart and former teammate Chiang Bo-ching, who cruised through the first four innings before running into a world of trouble in a dreadful fifth that cost T-Rex the game.
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