Liao “the Golden Submarine” Yu-cheng pitched 6-1/3 innings of two-run ball and Chen Rei-chen drove in a pair of runs on a 2-for-4 hitting as the Brother Elephants ran away with a 5-2 win over the Uni-President Lions at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tianmu on Sunday to sweep the three-game series against the defending champs.
The win not only padded the top-ranked Elephants’ lead over the second-place La New Bears to four games, but also extended their non-losing streak to four in a row, clearly making them the team to beat in the second half of the season.
Liu Geng-shin’s opposite-field single with two outs got the Elephants on the board first in the bottom of the third before Chen Guan-ren tripled and scored on Chen Rei-chen’s RBI single in the fourth that made it 2-0 in favor of the Elephants.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
After a scoreless fifth, the Elephants hitters got back to work with another run in the sixth, courtesy of an infield single from Chen Guan-ren.
The Cats finally answered with a pair of runs in the seventh to close the gap to a lone run, but that was as close as they would get as the Elephants bounced back and connected for a run in the bottom of the same inning, followed with an insurance run in the eighth to seal the win.
Picking up his third straight win to boost his team-best winning total to eight games was the Golden Submarine, who pitched a four-hit gem over 6-1/3 frames before turning to his stingy bullpen to preserve the victory.
Suffering the loss was Lions starter Pan Jung-rong, who pitched well enough for a win with four allowed runs on seven hits over six innings, but dismal run support from his offense managed only two runs on five hits in a losing cause.
BEARS 7, BULLS 3
The La New Bears bounced back from a blowout loss to the Sinon Bulls on Saturday with a 7-3 triumph over their nemeses in Hsinchu on Sunday to take the three-game weekend set 2-1.
Lin Chih-sheng continued his recent long-ball surge with his fourth homer in the last five games, a two-run shot off Pedro Liriano in the seventh, to raise his league-high home run total to 24 (in 70 games).
Also going deep for the second straight game was the Bulls’ Hsieh “the Ugly” Jia-shien, whose two-run shot off La New reliever Huang Chin-chih in the eighth brought his team to within a deuce before the Bears struck for two more in the ninth to put the game away.
Starter Chang Chih-jia earned his eighth win of the year with seven solid innings of one-run ball, even though he gave up eight of the dozen hits that the Bulls managed as they actually outhit the victors 12-to-10.
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