Back-to-back walks followed by a pair of hit batsmen and a wild pitch led to three runs in the top of the 11th for the Brother Elephants as they went on to defeat the Uni-President Lions 8-5 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium on Thursday night to split the two-game set against their archrivals from the south.
Lions reliever Chang Chih-chiang entered to start the top of the 11th and got two quick outs before surrendering a seemingly harmless single to the Elephants’ Wang Sheng-wei.
That was when things took a nasty dive south for the normally reliable side-armer as he walked the next two batters to load up the bases before hitting Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min on the leg and Chen Guan-ren on the helmet to allow two runs to score and trigger an automatic ejection by home plate umpire Chiang Chuen-wei.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
In came a rusty Chuang Jing-heh, who threw a wild pitch to allow the third run of the inning to score, which gave the Elephants an 8-5 lead, to which they held on until the end.
Cheng Nai-wen’s bases-loaded single with two outs in the bottom of the seventh broke a 3-all gridlock to give the Lions a 5-3 lead, only to see his bullpen return the favor in the very next inning as Kao Jien-san issued a single and a walk in the top of the eighth before Lin Yueh-ping served up a two-run single to Wang to tie the game at 5-all.
Neither team would score over the next two innings, with the Elephants’ Tsao Jung-yang holding his ground against his former team and the Lions’ Lin and Shen Bo-chang retiring the side in order in the ninth and 10th respectively to set the stage for the late-game drama.
Picking up the win was Elephants setup man Matt Perisho, who tossed a hitless 10th for his fourth win of the year, while Chang took the loss for failing to keep his pitches over the plate.
BULLS 11, BEARS 4
The Sinon Bulls avenged a bitter loss in extra-innings on Wednesday with a convincing win over the La New Bears on Thursday night at the Kaohsiung County Baseball Stadium, nipping a three-game slide.
Yang Jien-fu (3-9) pitched 5-2/3 innings of two-run ball on three hits to earn his third win of the year, while the Bears’ Hsu Wen-hsiung fell to an 8-11 mark for allowing four runs over three frames.
The Bulls scored at least a run in every inning except the ninth, racking up 16 hits in the process.
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