The top-ranked Uni-President Lions made every one of their four hits in the game count as they inched past the Lamigo Monkeys in a 3-2 win at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium last night.
Kao Guo-ching’s three-run blast off Lamigo starter Ken Ray in a three-hit first ended up being all the runs the Lions scored off the US ace, as it gave the home Cats a quick lead that they held on to dear life to escape with a narrow victory.
The Monkeys had plenty of chances to claim the lead with a lineup that racked up 10 hits off four Lions hurlers.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
However, their failure to make their hits count proved costly for Lamigo as they batted a dismal 2-for-16 with runners on, including hitting into two double plays.
Lions starter Yuya Kamada improved to a league-best 4-0 for the season with the win despite giving up seven hits over 6-2/3 innings.
Suffering the loss was Ray, who went the distance on one-hit ball after a rocky first, falling victim to an inefficient offense that seemed to get their hits at the wrong times.
ELEPHANTS 11, BULLS 4
The Brother Elephants roughed up the Sinon pitching by scoring 11 runs on as many hits at the Tianmu Baseball Stadium in Taipei last night to take their weekend series.
The highly anticipated showdown between the top two draft picks from the amateur draft — Lin Yu-ching of the Elephants and Lin Yen-fong of the Bulls — did not live up to its billing as Lin Yu-ching was ejected from the game after hitting a batter in the head in the top of the second.
Fortunately for the Elephants, reliever Lu Shao-yu was up to the task as he tossed 5-2/3 innings of three-run ball on four hits.
Lu’s solid performance earned him his second win of the season.
Offensively for the Elephants, four different batters had multi-hit games on the night, led by Chen Chih-hong’s 2-for-3 at the plate with a pair of RBIs. He also scored three times for the extremely efficient Elephant lineup.
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