Their inability to come up with the timely hits in the extra innings lead the Uni-President Lions and the Sinon Bulls to a 5-5 draw in a 12-inning marathon at the Sinjhuang Baseball Stadium in New Taipei City last night, giving the Cats a 2-0-1 finish in the three-game weekend series against the Bulls.
Both teams had the chance to take the lead in the extra innings, as the Bulls placed runners in scoring position during the 11th and the 12th, while the Lions did the same during the 10th and the 12th.
However, they would bat a combined 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position in the extra frames to end the four-plus hour marathon in a draw.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Even though the Bulls did not win the game, it was clearly a moral victory for them as they rallied from three down in the ninth inning to force the contest into extra innings.
Trailing 5-2 heading into the top of the ninth, the Bulls took the Lions’ Lin Yueh-ping head-on by slapping a pair of singles off the closer to set up Wu Tsong-jung’s sacrifice-fly to make it 5-3.
With runner on second, the next batter Su Jien-rong made Lin pay play by going deep for a two-run blast over the left-field wall to tie the game at 5-5.
ELEPHANTS 6, MONKEYS 3
The Brother Elephants doubled up the Lamigo Monkeys in a 6-3 final at the Douliou County Baseball Stadium yesterday afternoon to avoid being swept in the three-game set over the weekend.
Wang Sheng-wei led off the game with a rare triple off Lamigo starter Steve Hammond for the defending champs and scored two batters later on Chang Cheng-wei’s RBI-groundout to give the Elephants a quick 1-0 advantage.
The Elephants would increase their lead to 3-0 with a run off Hammond in the second and the third, before the potent Lamigo lineup finally got on the board in a three-run fourth, highlighted by Chen Chin-fong’s two-run homer off Elephant starter Yeh Yong-jeh to tie the game at 3-all.
The score remained at 3-all during the next two frames until the Elephant hitters went to work again on Hammond in the sixth, this time with back-to-back doubles by Chen Guan-ren and Huang Shih-hao, to spark a three-run spurt to put their team ahead for good.
Guan Da-yuan was credited with his second win of the season with 4-1/3 innings of shutout relief on three hits to beat Hammond, who surrendered five runs on nine hits over 5-1/3 innings in his second setback of the year.
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