Close plays dominated the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) action on Wednesday, with the Chinatrust Whales edging past the Uni-President Lions 4-3 in extra innings at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium and the Sinon Bulls eking out an identical 4-3 win over the dmedia T-Rex, also in extra innings, at the Taichung Municipal Baseball Stadium.
Wilton Veras’ chopper to first with a runner on third scored the go-ahead run in the top of the 12th for the marine creatures and Steve Watkins pitched a scoreless 12th to cap four innings of masterful relief to pick up his sixth win of the year.
The home cats struck first with a pair of runs off Whales starter Nee Fu-deh on a Whales error in the bottom of the opening frame to lead it 2-0 before the visitors returned the favor two innings later on Kuo Dai-yong’s two-run double to tie things up at 2-all.
The two teams traded a run in the sixth on a solo homer by Veras off Lions reliever Shen Bo-chang and an RBI-double by the Lions’ Liu Fu-hao that made it 3-3, a score that lasted well into the extra innings before the Whales’ heroic 12th.
BULLS 4, T-REX 3, 10 INNINGS
Miscues by the defense cost the dmedia T-Rex the game on Wednesday as they gave up the winning run to the Sinon Bulls on a walk-off error for a 4-3 defeat in Taichung.
With the game tied at 3-3 and two outs in the bottom of the 10th, Chang Jien-ming lined a bullet shot to the right-center gap for an apparent triple and scored on a wild throw to third by the dmedia defense to win it for the home Bulls.
The costly errors wasted an otherwise valiant comeback by the T-Rex, who overcame a 3-1 deficit with a run each in the seventh and eighth inning to force a 3-3 tie late in the game before the letdown in the extra inning.
Earning his second win of the season with 2-1/3 innings of scoreless relief was Sinon rookie Tsai Ming-jin, who allowed a lone hit to the last eight batters he faced, beating his counterpart Yen Chih-chung.
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