Liao Wen-yang tossed five innings of one-run ball, Kao Guo-ching homered twice in the same game, and the Uni-President Lions went on to defeat the Sinon Bulls 2-1 at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium last night to clinch the weekend series in Taichung with their second win in as many days.
It was the fifth time that the veteran slugger had multi-homers in a game, which came in handy for Liao, as he needed both homers to beat his counterpart Lin Chen-hua, who pitched well enough in his own right, and improve his season mark to a perfect 4-0.
The showdown between a pair of former aces from the Chinese Culture University saw Kao’s solo shot off Lin to lead off the second giving the Cats a quick 1-0 lead, before an RBI double by the Bulls’ Su Jien-rong promptly tied things up at 1-all in the bottom of the third.
The tie would last less than an inning as the Lions reclaimed their second lead of the night on the merit of Kao’s second round-tripper, this time a towering shot over the leftfield fence as he tattooed an offering from Lin that caught too much of the plate.
The mistake by Lin proved costly for the home Bulls as Liao pitched out of trouble in the fourth and the fifth, before the Lion bullpen took over with four scoreless innings of two-hit ball to preserve the win for the sophomore right-hander.
Sinon managed to put a runner in a scoring position in the fifth and the seventh against the Lions’ pitching, but came away empty-handed on both occasions. Lin escaped the Bulls’ scoring threat in the fifth by inducing a come-backer to himself to end the fifth, while Wang Jing-ming got the opposing hitter to ground to first to strand the runner on second in the seventh.
MONKEYS 0, ELEPHANTS 6
Wang Sheng-wei’s inside-the-park homer broke a 1-0 game wide open in the bottom of the eighth as the Brother Elephants dominated the Lamigo Monkeys on both sides of the ball in a 6-0 shutout at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tianmu last night.
Chang Chih-hao got things moving in the right direction for the men in the golden uniform by singling off Monkey starter Leonard DiNardo up the middle and reaching third on a pair of steals before scoring on an RBI-groundout by Chang Cheng-wei.
The 1-0 advantage would last through the seventh for the Elephants, as starter Lin Yu-ching was rock solid off the mound by pitching a two-hit gem through the sixth before reliever Brad Thomas chipped in three innings of one-hit ball to keep the shutout intact.
Picking up his fourth win of the year was Lin, who was the beneficiary of a stingy defense that featured a shoestring catch by leftfielder Chou Si-chi to take away at least two runs from the Monkeys and turned two double plays in the game.
Tagged with the loss was DiNardo, who pitched well through the seventh before running into a world of trouble in the eighth.
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