Plating five unanswered runs over the seventh and eighth innings, the Brother Elephants broke away from a 2-2 tie to top the La New Bears 7-2 at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang last night.
The win not only clinched the weekend series for the men in the yellow uniforms, but more importantly it clinched the second-half title as they improved to 34-21 with five games remaining in the regular season.
Chang Cheng-wei’s RBI triple following Chen Chih-hong’s two-run double capped a three-run spurt in the bottom of the seventh, right after the Bears had tied the game at 2-2 in the top of the inning with Lin Chih-sheng’s solo blast off game-winner Carlos Castillo for his league-leading 21st long-ball of the season.
PHOTO: CNA
“Talk about momentum-killer,” Bears skipper Tsai Rong-tsong said after the game, referring to the Elephants’ three-run seventh inning right after his troops had rallied to tie the game up.
The Elephants’ rally further exposed the Bears’ vulnerable bullpen, which has blown 17 saves so far this season.
Also starring for the victorious Elephants were Chou Si-chi and Chen Guan-ren, who both homered on the night, with the former unloading a shot to dead center that gave his team a 2-1 lead in the fourth and the latter taking Bears reliever Geng Bo-hsuan deep for a solo blast that made it 6-2 in the eighth.
PHOTO: LIAO YAU-TUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Picking up his league-leading 14th win of the year was Castillo, who went eight innings, allowing a pair of runs (only one earned) on five hits, while the loss went to his counterpart Luis Villarreal, who matched Castillo inning for inning through the sixth, before faltering in the game-deciding seventh by allowing two runners to reach on a single and a walk to set up the Elephants’ three-run rally.
Lions 4, Bulls 3
Shih Jing-dien’s two-out single with a runner on third scored the go-ahead run in the top of the eighth for the Uni-President Lions as they held on to defeat the Sinon Bulls 4-3 at the Taichung Municipal Baseball Stadium last night to take the weekend series by a 2-1 margin.
RBI singles by Hsu Sheng-jeh and Yang Song-hsuen gave the visiting Cats an early 2-0 lead in the top of the second, only to see the hosts return the favor an inning later, courtesy of Cheng Hong-da’s run-scoring single and a wild pitch by Lions starter Wang Jing-ming that scored the runner from third.
The Bulls actually skidded ahead 3-2 in the sixth inning, with back-to-back doubles from Chang Tai-shan and Lin Yi-chuan that brought the fans to their feet, but the lead proved short-lived, as the visitors countered with a two-out single by Liu Fu-hao that tied the game up in the seventh, before Shih delivered the knockout punch in the eighth to give his team their second lead of the game.
The Bulls made things very interesting in the bottom of the ninth by leading off the inning with an infield single by Cheng Jau-han off Lions closer Jerome Williams, but failed to bring him home as Williams calmly retired the next three hitters in order to preserve the win for reliever Lin Cheng-fong.
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