The Uni-President Lions made it two straight victories against the La New Bears on the road at the Kaohsiung County Municipal Baseball Stadium yesterday, sweeping the day-night double-header with a pair of convincing wins.
Starter Lin Yueh-ping came out of his normal closer position in a rare start with four shutout innings of work, while his successor Wang Ming-jing followed with three scoreless frames of one-hit relief to humble the hosts 6-1 in the first game.
The Cats did make a pair of errors that led to an unearned run in the eighth for the Bears that cost them the shutout, but the outcome of the game was never in doubt with both hurlers taking their “A” game to their nemeses in Kaohsiung.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
Offensively for the victorious Lions, back-to-back scoring singles by Marshall McDougall and Liu Fu-hao in the opening inning that put their team ahead 2-0 were more than ample to produce the win, not to mention switch-hitting newcomer Henry Mateo’s three-run homer in the eighth. The Dominican slugger would end up going two-for-four in the game, with three RBIs to up his RBI total to seven in nine contests.
Picking up his sixth win of the year was Wang, while the loss went to Bears starter Chris Mason, who allowed three runs on eight hits over six-and-two-third innings of play to fall to the 9-4 mark for the year.
The Lions netted their second win of the day in the second game with a 3-1 victory, thanks to a tie-breaking double by Liu Yu-cheng that broke a 1-1 deadlock in the top of the seventh inning.
Kao Guo-ching hit into a double play in the top of the eighth, but still managed to score the Lions’ third run of the game for some insurance after Yang Song-hsuen led off the inning with an infield single and took third on a wild throw by Bears reliever Hsu Ming-jeh in a would-be double-play attempt.
Hsu Yu-wei was awarded the win for his two innings of scoreless relief, while the loss went to Bears starter Ken Ray, who allowed a runner in the seventh to set up Liu Yu-cheng’s game-winning double. Ray is now 5-5 for the season.
Lin Chih-sheng’s solo blast off Lions starter Luther Hackman, his league-leading 13th of the year, was the lone highlight for the hapless Bears, losers of two in a row and five of their last six as they fell below .500 for the first time in the second half of the season at 8-9.
Bulls 10, Elephants 2
The visitors also ruled the roost in the contest between the Sinon Bulls and the Brother Elephants at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tianmu last night, with the Bulls thrashing the Elephants 10-2.
Yang Jien-fu scattered four singles over seven scoreless innings to lead the way as the Bulls starter improved to 8-2 for the year.
He was backed by a rapid-firing Bulls lineup that teed off against the Elephants by pitching for a dozen hits on the night, including a double, a rare triple and Cheng Hong-da’s two-run shot in the top of the ninth.
Taking the loss was Orlando Roman, who surrendered six runs in as many innings on eight hits in a sub-par performance. The American’s ERA has climbed from a once-solid 2.70 early last month to 3.17 after last night’s disastrous start.
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