Scoring three unanswered runs after falling behind early in the game, the La New Bears edged past the Uni-President Lions 3-1 at the Douliou County Baseball Stadium last night to complete their three-game sweep in the weekend series.
Bears starter Luis Villarreal overcame a shaky second inning in which he allowed a single and a double for a run, before retiring the next batters to keep the damage to a minimum.
That was the lone run the Lions scored in the contest, with Villarreal holding his ground through the sixth inning, before the La New bullpen chipped in with three shutout innings of relief to preserve the second win of the year for the US southpaw.
PHOTO: CHAN CHAO-YANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Offensively for the rambunctious Bears, Chang Ming-yen’s RBI groundout in the fourth tied the game at 1-1, while Shih Yen-wei’s clutch single drove in the go-ahead run in the seventh.
La New added an insurance run in the ninth inning that made it 3-1 on a wet night in south-central Taiwan.
Failure to come up with the timely hits cost the defending champions the game as they batted a futile 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranded a total of 11 in a dismal outing.
The loss by the Lions overshadowed first baseman Kao Guo-ching’s second-inning double, which marked his 700th career hit in just 594 games, making him the fastest to reach the 700-hit plateau in league history by beating out the previous record of 595 games, set by former Brother Elephant great Chen “the Golden Warrior” Chih-yuan.
“It’s great to be able to accomplish it [breaking the record], but it would be even better if we had won the game,” Kao said after the game.
His Lions had lost only three straight twice this year prior to the three-game sweep over the weekend.
Taking the tough loss on behalf of the Lions was reliever Hsu Yu-wei, who allowed the go-ahead run in the seventh in relief of starter Luther Hackman to fall to 0-3 for the season.
The scheduled game between the Elephants and the Bulls in Tianmu was postponed because of the wet weather.
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