Homers from Lin Chih-sheng and Lee Yi-wei led the way as the La New Bears rallied from seven down with 10 unanswered runs to topple the Sinon Bulls 10-7 at the Kaohsiung County Baseball Stadium on Thursday evening, sweeping the two-game home stand from their archrivals.
A slow-starting Bears lineup that had hibernated through the first four frames in a seemingly all-Lions contest suddenly awoke in the bottom of the fifth with five big runs off Pedro Liriano to chase the Sinon starter.
Picking up where they left off, the home Bears followed their fifth-inning feat with another five-run splurge in the sixth, highlighted by Lin’s league-leading 21st blast of the season, to claim a 10-7 lead, a lead that stood to the end.
PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YI, TAIPEI TIMES
Also starring for the Bears on a perfect 4-for-4 hitting with a pair of RBIs was outfielder Chung Cheng-yo, who also showed off his versatility on defense by playing centerfield for two innings in a double-switch substitution stunt in the sixth by Bears skipper Hong Yi-chung.
Earning his second victory of the year with four solid innings of one-run relief was Tseng Jau-hao, who entered in the third to bail out struggling starter Josh Miller and kept the damage to a minimum by inducing a double play before striking out the final Sinon hitter to end a scoring threat.
Tagged with the tough loss was Bulls reliever Shen Yu-jeh, who failed to protect a two-run lead in the sixth by serving up Lin’s game-turning three-run shot in a losing cause.
ELEPHANTS 4, LIONS 4
The Uni-President Lions and the Brother Elephants played to a draw in a weather-affected match in Tainan on Thursday night as the game was called after the top of the ninth because of heavy rain from Typhoon Morakot.
Jose Castillo’s solo home run got the home Cats on the board in the opening frame before they doubled the lead two innings later when Pan Wu-hsiung scored all the way from second after the Elephants defense mishandled a relay throw from the outfield on a routine fly that made it 2-0 to the Lions.
The Elephants plated a run in the fourth inning on a solo home run by Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min to halve the deficit and tie the game at 2-all in the fifth on a sacrifice fly from Chen Jiang-ho, only to see the Lions take the lead for the second time in the bottom of the fifth courtesy of Pan’s solo homer off Elephants starter Mike Smith.
The Lions managed to tack on another run in the seventh that made it 4-2 before the Elephants rallied again in the eighth on an RBI single by Chou Si-chi and a run-scoring groundout by Chia Chia for what turned out to be the tie-setting run.
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