Scoring early and often, the Brother Elephants easily won Game 3 of the Playoff Series against the La New Bears by a 10-3 margin in Tienmu on Sunday to sweep the best-of-five postseason series in convincing fashion.
For the second time in three games, the Elephants scored at least one run over the first five innings in the game, setting a new playoff record for consecutive innings with at least one run scored. By the time the visiting Bears realized what had hit them; the scoreboard was already reading 6-2 in favor of the home Elephants after only three innings of play.
Chen “the Golden Warrior” Chih-yuan led off the bottom of the first with a solid single to left and scored one out later on Chen Guan-ren’s liner to right to give their team a quick 1-0 lead.
Even though the Bears would strike for two against Elephants starter Danny Core on Yu Jin-deh’s two-run single to lead 2-1, that was as close as they got to the American righty as Core then retired 18 of the next 20 batters he faced, allowing a harmless single in the third and a one-out walk in the seventh.
While Core showed his dominance from the mound, the Elephants hitters were pounding away against the Bears pitching in their own right with another run in the second before erupting for five base hits against three different Bears hurlers in a four-run third to blow the game wide open at 6-2.
They would tack on a run in the four before coming up with three more in the fifth, highlighted by a perfectly executed double-steal, to reach the double-digit scoring plateau before calling it the night.
Seven different Elephants hitters would end up with multi-hit games on the night led by the Golden Warrior’s 3-for-6 effort with a pair of RBIs and Chen Jiang-heh’s 2-for-3 outing with three runs batted in to account for half of their total run production.
Picking up win was Core who went eight innings strong with two allowed runs on four hits for his first postseason win. His continued success will be a key factor for the Elephants in their upcoming Taiwan Series against the defending champs the Uni-President Lions.
Suffering the tough loss for the road Bears in a surprisingly quick series was starter Chang Chih-jia failed to live up to his big-game pitcher reputation by serving up four quick runs over two-plus innings before being chased in a not-so-happy ending for the Bears.
UPCOMING GAMES
Next up for the victorious Elephants will be the Uni-President Lions in the 19th Taiwan Series that is scheduled to begin on Saturday at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium.
With the Elephants rolling up a colossal momentum heading into the annual Fall Classic, it will be tough for the well-rested Lions who had earned a first-round bye with the best overall record during the regular season.
Game 1 starters have not been officially named yet, but it will likely be the Elephants’ Liao Yu-cheng taking on Lions staff ace Pan “Du Du” Wei-luen in a showdown between the ERA king (Liao) and winningest pitcher over the past three seasons with 42 wins under his belt.
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