Yang Jien-fu pitched in his old form for the first time in a while, going the distance in a 4-0 shutout against the Brother Elephants for the Sinon Bulls at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium last night.
It was only the second career complete-game shutout for the veteran hurler as he scattered three hits while fanning two and walking four.
The last time Yang registered a complete-game shutout was on Sept. 19, 2004, also against the Elephants.
“It was a big win for both him [Yang] and us, because we could really use the rest in our bullpen,” Sinon skipper Hsu Sheng-ming said after the game, referring to Yang’s tremendous effort as well as the much-needed rest that he managed to give the Sinon bullpen.
Offensively for the victorious Bulls, Cheng Da-hong’s 2-for-3 hitting with a pair of RBIs led a lineup that rang up nine hits off the Brother pitching.
Also starring was leadoff man Chang Jien-ming, who belted a pair of base hits while knocking in the his team’s first run of the game with a clutch double in the bottom of the third off game-loser Orlando Roman.
The Elephants had their best scoring chance against Yang early in the game, placing runners in scoring position in the first two innings, but failed to come through on either occasion by going a futile 0-for-4 to strand a total of six runners.
LIONS 5, BEARS 1
Scoring five unanswered runs, the Uni-President Lions humbled the La New Bears in a 5-1 final at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tianmu last night for their second win in as many days.
After two scoreless innings of play, it was the Bears who got on the board first in the top of the third when Chang Jia-hao led off the inning with a single off Lion starter Luther Hackman and scored two three batters later on a sacrifice fly by Tsai Jien-wei.
The 1-0 lead proved short-lived as the Lions answered with Kao Guo-ching’s third homer of the season, a two-run shot off Bear starter Luis Villarreal to take a 2-1 lead.
That was more than ample for Hackman to work with as the American righty cruised through the seventh unharmed before Kao Jien-san closed out the deal with a scoreless eighth and ninth to preserve the victory for Hackman.
The Bears play the Lions tomorrow at 5:05pm in Taoyuan, while the Elephants play the Bulls at the same time in Tianmu.
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