Homering for the fifth straight game with a pair of dingers, Lin Chih-sheng drove in four runs to lead the La New Bears past the Uni-President Lions in a 10-3 road win at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium on Saturday to avenge Friday night’s loss against the defending champs.
The red-hot slugger, who also connected for a doubled on a 3-for-4 night with 10 total bases in his fifth straight and seventh multi-hit outing of the year, has become every pitcher’s nightmare, leading the league in every offensive category with a sizable margin over the next-best player.
“When everything is clicking for you, you just have to relax and enjoy it for as long as you can, because you know it won’t last forever,” Lin said after the game.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
His free-swinging bat got the Bears on the board in a hurry with a three-run blast in the top of the first to give the visitors a quick 3-0 lead.
After Shih Chih-wei’s three-run shot in the second put the Bears ahead 6-0, the Lions managed to halve the deficit with three runs of their own in the bottom of the second on the strength of a pair of singles and a double off Bears starter Chang Chih-jia in a 6-3 game.
That was all the scoring the Lions would get with Chang retiring all but one of the next 15 hitters he faced through the seventh before the bullpen took over with a scoreless eighth and ninth to secure his second win of the year.
Suffering the loss for Lions was starter Chu Wei-ming, who served up three homers in six innings of work to lose for the second time this season.
Bulls 6, Elephants 2
Chang “Prince of the Forest” Tai-shan’s solo blast broke a 2-all tie in the bottom of the fourth before the Sinon Bulls went on to defeat the Brother Elephants 6-2 in Kaohsiung on Saturday evening.
The win not only boosted the Bulls’ winning streak at home (not necessarily played in the Bulls’ home field in Taichung) to seven in a row, but also set the struggling Elephants back to a season-high five straight.
Rookie hurler Lin Keh-chien was credited with his second win of the year for tossing seven solid innings of two-run ball in beating his counterpart Liu Yu-chang, who allowed four runs on six hits over four-and-two-thirds innings in a losing effort.
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