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.
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.
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