Capitalizing on three errors by the La New Bears defense, the Brother Elephants scored a pair of unearned runs en route to a 3-0 shutout win at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tianmu on Sunday night to win their three-game series 2-1.
Starter Liao “the Golden Submarine” Yu-cheng was not at his best, allowing at least one La New batter to reach base safely in all but one of the seven innings he threw. He nonetheless managed to keep the Bears off the board, with the help of a defense that turned two double plays to earn his ninth win of the season.
Elephants batter Huang Cheng-wei’s RBI groundout in the third broke a scoreless tie before Chen Rei-cheng drew a bases-loaded walk off Bears starter Jose Silva, giving the men in the gold a 2-0 lead.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Wang Jin-yong’s liner to right with a runner on third dropped for a single that made it 3-0 in favor of the Elephants in the sixth and that was all they needed. Setup man Matt Perisho pitched a scoreless eighth before closer Ryan Cullen worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the ninth to convert his sixth straight save opportunity.
Failure to come up with timely hits proved costly for the Bears as they batted a futile 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position, including two double plays, to strand a total of 14 runners.
Silva pitched well enough to win in his Taiwan debut, with a pair of unearned runs on six hits over five frames, but lacked the necessary run support in his first loss of the year.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
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