Second-half play continued around the league with the Uni-President Lions blanking the Sinon Bulls in a 5-0 final at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium last night as the Cats remained unbeaten at 2-0 with a pair of shutout wins.
After Friday night’s narrow 1-0 win over the Bulls, in which the Cats used a walk-off single by Pan “TAKE” Wu-hsiung to break a scoreless tie in the bottom of the ninth, it was only fitting for the stingy home hosts to follow their act with another impressive showing, thanks to an outstanding effort by starter Ryan Edell, who tossed shutout ball through the seventh in a three-hitter before turning the game to his bullpen.
The win marked the US lefty’s first in a Lion uniform as he rewarded skipper Terushi Nakashima’s decision to promote him from the minors with a big “W” in his big league debut.
Edell was not alone in the Lions’ convincing trouncing of the Bulls, as they showed off some great leatherwork with Liu Fu-hao and Kao Guo-ching coming up big on several shoestring grabs to rob the Bulls of at least three base hits and a chance to break their scoreless streak, which stands at 22 innings and counting.
The showdown between Edell and his counterpart, Lin Chi-wei, was a defensive struggle as the Lions led it 1-0 through the fifth with the lone run coming in the bottom of the second on an RBI groundout by Yang Song-hsuan.
However, with one clutch swing by Kao on a pitch from Lin that barely cleared the leftfield wall for a three-run home run in the sixth, the score suddenly read 4-0 as the Lions broke it wide open with four runs in the innings to seal off the victory.
Elephants 8, Monkeys 3
The Brother Elephants bounced back from an ugly loss on Friday with an 8-3 win over the Lamigo Monkeys at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium last night to even their weekend series against the Primates at one win apiece.
Chen Chih-hong’s seemingly harmless infield single off Monkey starter Ken Ray sparked what ended up being a seven-run fifth as the men in the golden uniform jumped all over the Monkeys with five straight singles and a triple off three different pitchers in the decisive fifth en route to their first win of the second half.
Jim Magrane improved to an even 6-6 record with the win, while the loss went to Ray, who cruised through the fourth unharmed before suffering his seventh defeat of the year.
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