The Brother Elephants completed a three-game sweep over the weekend by downing the Uni-President Lions 3-1 at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tianmu last night, dealing the hapless Cats their 10th straight defeat.
Starter Orlando Roman took a shutout into the eighth before surrendering the lone Lion run of the night on back-to-back singles and a sacrifice fly in the eighth en route to his fourth win of the season. Even though he allowed at least a runner on in all but one inning through the seventh, the American righty managed to keep the Lions from scoring through the seventh with some clutch outs and crafty pitching off the mound.
In came Ryan Cullen, who took over with two outs in the eighth by retiring the final four batters in order for his 10th save of the year.
Offensively for the men in their familiar golden uniform, Chang Cheng-wei’s rare triple off Lions starter Luther Hackman in the bottom of the first set up Chen Guan-ren’s sacrifice fly for their first run of the contest.
They doubled the lead in the fourth when Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min led off the inning with a single and scored two outs later on an erroneous throw to first that made it 2-0.
After the Lions finally scored in the eighth to cut the lead to 2-1, the Elephants promptly regained the two-run advantage in the bottom of the same inning, a lead that stood to the end.
BULLS 4, BEARS 2
The top-ranked Sinon Bulls made it two in row against the La New Bears by downing their nemeses from Kaohsiung in a 4-2 decision at the Taichung Municipal Baseball Stadium last night to win the three-game set by a 2-1 margin.
It was an important victory for the home Bulls as they widen their lead over the second-placed Bears to two-and-a-half games in the standings with 10 games remaining in the first half of the season, lowering the Bulls’ magic number for clinching the first-half title to seven.
The classic pitchers’ duel between the Bears’ Luis Villarreal and the Bulls’ Chang Geng-hao saw both starters cruising through the fourth unharmed in a scoreless tie until the Bulls broke through in the bottom of the fifth to lead it 1-0, courtesy of an RBI-groundout by Chang Jien-ming.
The lead lasted less than an inning as the Bears plated a pair of runs in the top of the sixth with RBI singles from Chung Cheng-yo and Yu Jin-deh to take a 2-1 lead of their own.
Refusing to lose this one at home, Sinon rallied with two runs in the seventh to reclaim a 3-2 lead before picking up an insurance run in the eighth to run away with a 4-2 victory.
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