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Elephants, Lions weak ahead of playoffs

CPBL Yesterday’s results • La New Bears 3, Uni-President Lions 1 • Sinon Bulls 3, Brother Elephants 0 Today’s games • Uni-President Lions v La New Bears (Taichung, 2:30pm) • Brother Elephants v Sinon Bulls (Kaohsiung, 2pm)

Trouble continued for the Brother Elephants this week as they dropped another lopsided loss to the La New Bears 9-3 at the Douliou Baseball Stadium on Thursday night for their third straight defeat.

The second-half champs have not won a game since last week earning the right to take on the Uni-President Lions in the Taiwan Series next Saturday, averaging only two runs in the three games while giving up eight per contest.

Failure to come up with timely hits was the culprit as the Elephants managed to score only three on the dozen hits they belted off the La New pitchers, going 3-for-11 with runners in scoring position, not to mention one runner who was gunned down at the plate on one of those three hits.

Four third-inning runs on the strength of five singles and a walk off Brother starter Kobayashi Ryokan broke a 1-1 tie wide open for the Bears before they added two more runs in the fourth to lead 7-1.

Even though the Elephants were able to get two of the runs back in the bottom of the same inning off La New starter Kuo Jien-hong, he navigated through the fifth without further damage while Chang Chih-jia and Wang Fong-hsin both chipped in with two scoreless innings of relief to keep the Elephants at bay.

Picking up the win in his starting debut was Kuo, who allowed three runs (only one earned) on nine hits over five innings for his first victory. The second-year righty — who worked his way up in the Bears minors system to earn a spot on the team — made a genius of skipper Hong Yi-chung, who gave Kuo the nod after his team failed to make the playoffs for the first time in four years.

BULLS 13, LIONS 2

The Sinon Bulls vented some of their frustration for missing the postseason for the third straight year by routing the playoff-bound Uni-President Lions 13-2 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium on Thursday for their fourth win in five games.

The Cats struck first in the bottom of the second, with Chuang Jing-ho leading off with a single and scoring two batters later on an RBI groundout by Chen Jung-hui.

It was all Bulls after that as the visitors erupted for 13 unanswered runs through the eighth, highlighted by a six-run sixth that saw long-ball threat Hsieh “the Ugly” Jia-shien going deep off Lions reliever Yo Chin-wei for a two-run home run.

Also homering for the Bulls were Wilton Veras, Lin Tsong-nan and Lin Yi-chuan on a lineup that abused the Lions’ pitchers with 16 hits, making a winner out of starter Yu Wen-bin, who improved to 6-4 for the year.


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