Lin Chih-sheng’s walk-off two-run homer off Jerome Williams in the bottom of the 12th lifted the La New Bears past the Uni-President Lions for a 4-2 win in extra innings at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium last night.
It was the 17th blast that the Bears slugger has driven out of the park, giving him three RBIs on a two-for-six night.
“This is exactly what we need to break out of a slump,” Lin said after the game while several of his teammates continued cheering following his last at-bat heroics.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The win not only evened the weekend series between the two teams at one apiece through two games, but also nipped a four-game losing skid for the last-place Bears.
The classic pitchers’ duel between the Lions’ Pan “Du Du” Wei-luen and the Bears’ Ken Ray lived up to its billing as neither offense was able to score any runs through to the fifth inning. The Cats finally got on the board in the top of the sixth when Henry Mateo led off the inning with a clean single up the middle and scored two batters later on Kao Guo-ching’s sacrifice fly, before Liu Fu-hao followed with an RBI double to put the team 2-0 ahead.
The Bears answered in the bottom of the same inning, courtesy of a solo homer by Chen Chin-fong off Du Du that made it 2-1. It was Chen’s 97th career blast since returning to his homeland after a six-year stint with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the US.
The 2-1 lead for the Lions proved insufficient as the Bears managed to score their second run of the contest with a two-out single in the seventh by Lin that tied the game at 2-2.
The run ultimately cost Du Du what would have been his 98th career victory as his fourth bid for career victory No. 98 fell short because of a lack of run support from his batters.
Taking the win was Bears reliever Geng Bo-hsuen, who pitched a scoreless 12th, while the loss went to Williams.
Elephants v Bulls (postponed)
Steady rain in the Taichung area throughout yesterday forced the match between the Brother Elephants and the Sinon Bulls at the Taichung Municipal Baseball Stadium to be postponed to 1:05pm this afternoon as the day game of a day-night doubleheader.
The Elephants will try to extend their current four-game win streak against the first-half champions by sending 10-game winner Orlando Roman to the mound to take on second-year righty Lin Chi-wei, who is 9-3 in his own right and has not lost in his last five starts.
The evening game will start at 5:05pm, while at the same time this evening the Lions will look to bounce back against the Bears in Jhouji.
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