Cheng Nai-wen’s RBI ground-out capped a three-run eighth as the Uni-President Lions overcame a two-run deficit late in the game to defeat the Brother Elephants 9-8 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium on Wednesday evening.
Trailing by two heading into the bottom of the eighth, the home Cats took full advantage of a costly error by Liu Geng-hsin, when the Elephants second baseman mishandled a high chopper by Kuo Dai-chi to second with the bases loaded to score the runners on second and third.
With runners at the corners in a tied game, Cheng promptly came up with the big RBI ground-out to give the Lions their first lead of the game at 9-8, a lead they would hold after a perfect ninth by closer Lin Yueh-ping.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
The slugfest featured three homers and 22 combined hits and saw the Elephants taking leads of 1-0, 5-1, and 8-5 as late as the top of the seventh, with the resilient Cats fighting back each time, highlighted by a two-run blast from Jose Castillo in a three-run fifth that brought the Lions from four down to within a run.
Tseng Yi-cheng was credited with the win, despite allowing three runs on two hits and a walk in the seventh and eighth to beat his counterpart Mai Jia-rei, thanks to the late-game surge by his offense and the costly error by Liu.
BEARS 5, BULLS 4
The La New Bears needed a four-run fifth to take their first lead in a game in nearly two weeks and had to hold on for their lives to turnover the Sinon Bulls 5-4 at the Kaohsiung County Baseball Stadium on Tuesday night.
The win not only nipped a dreadful eight-game slide for the Bears, it also dealt the Bulls their fourth defeat in a row, as the battle of the bottom two went in the Bears’ favor.
Run-scoring hits by Chang “Prince of the Forest” Tai-shan and Hsieh “the Ugly” Jia-shien in the fourth and fifth gave the visiting Bulls a 2-0 lead, before the hosts answered with a four-run fifth on the strength of consecutive RBI singles by Lin Chih-ping, Shih Chih-wei, and Lin Chih-sheng.
Huang “Easy” Long-yi’s solo shot off Ricardo Rodriguez in the sixth made it 5-2, which they held on to until the eighth when the Bulls struck for two more runs.
That was as close as it got as Hsu Ming-jeh came on with two outs and two on and struck out the Bulls batter to end the scoring threat, before pitching a scoreless ninth to preserve the win.
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