The La New Bears wrapped up the two-game series against the Sinon Bulls on Wednesday night with a 7-4 victory at the Kaohsiung County Baseball Stadium.
The victory not only extended the Bears’ winning streak to a season-high seven straight, but also gave them eight wins in a row at home; giving Kaohsiung the biggest home field advantage in the league.
The two clubs traded a run each during the second before the Bears skidded ahead by four with a three-run fourth and a one-run fifth to lead it 5-1.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
Chang “Prince of the Forest” Tai-shan’s RBI-single, followed by Huang Chung-yi’s two-run home run quickly brought the Bulls to within a run in the sixth that made it 5-4 at that point.
That was as close as the Bulls would get with the Bears tacking on a pair of insurance runs in the seventh on Pan Chung-wei’s two-run double to seal the win.
Picking up the win for the Bears was lefty starter Hsu Yu-wei who allowed four runs on five hits over seven innings, including Huang’s two-run blast, to even his season mark at 4-4.
As for the Bulls, losers of three straight and nine of their last dozen, rookie righty Lin Chih-wei was tagged with the loss for serving up five runs and eight hits in 5-1/3 innings, even though only two of the five allowed runs were earned.
LIONS 3, ELEPHANTS 1
Homers by Chen Lien-hong and Kao Guo-ching led the way for the Uni-President Lions as they beat the Brother Elephants by a 3-1 margin in Tainan on Wednesday evening in their third consecutive win.
Trailing the top-ranked Bears by a game heading into the contest, the home side needed a win to keep pace with the league-leaders.
And that was exactly what they got out of starter Luther Hackman who pitched seven shutout innings of four-hit ball to turn away the previously red-hot Elephants for the win.
Elephants starter Danny Core was equally effective in holding the potent Lions attack scoreless through the fifth in a three-hit gem before serving up Chen’s solo blast in the sixth.
He was charged with another run in the seventh when reliever Mai Jia-rei failed to hold the runners by surrendering a two-out single to Chen for his second RBI of the game.
The Elephants finally got on the board in the ninth with two single and a walk off Lions closer Lin Yueh-ping.
But that was the extent they got to Lin as the fireballer buckled down and struck out the final two Elephants batters to convert his 15th straight save.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
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