Lin Hong-yu’s two-run homer capped a four-run seventh that blew an otherwise close game wide open as the Lamigo Monkeys tamed the Uni-President Lions 9-2 at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium last night for their seventh straight win.
It was the second time that the sophomore catcher out of the Chinese Culture University had gone deep with his mighty bat, giving him 11 long balls for the season to tie the Lions’ Kao Guo-ching for the lead in total homers this year.
“I just got a good look at the pitch and was able to follow the ball all the way in,” Lin said after the game as he quietly extended his hitting streak to six games.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Also starring for the Primates at the plate was Kuo Yen-wen, who went a perfect four for four with three RBIs to set a new season-high for most RBIs in a single game for the Monkeys infielder.
The Monkeys wasted little time getting on the board against the Lions’ Liao Wen-yang, with Lin Chih-ping reaching on a fielder’s choice and scoring two batters later on an RBI groundout by Lin Hong-yu for a quick 1-0 lead after one inning of play.
That lead lasted less than an inning as the Lions returned the favor in the top of the second with a two-out single to the opposite field off Monkeys starter Scot Drucker by Hsu Sheng-jeh to score the runner on second.
The two teams traded another run each over the next two innings, before Kuo’s run-scoring double sparked a two-run fifth that made it 4-2 in favor of the Monkeys.
That was as close as the Lions got as Drucker cruised from the fifth inning through the seventh, not allowing another Lions hitter to reach second, before the Monkeys bullpen took over for a scoreless eighth and ninth to seal the victory for Drucker.
Taking the loss on behalf of the Lions was Liao, who lasted 4-2/3 innings with four allowed runs on six hits in his second defeat of the year.
An inability to come up with timely hits ultimately cost the Lions the game as they managed to score only one run off the nine hits they collected off the Monkey pitchers, not counting Pan Wu-hsiung’s solo shot off Drucker in the fourth, on an otherwise very inefficient night.
The other CPBL game scheduled for yesterday between the Brother Elephants and the Sinon Bulls was postponed.
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