The Brother Elephants doubled up on the Sinon Bulls in a 4-2 affair at the Sinjhuang Baseball Stadium in New Taipei City last night to avoid being swept by the last-placed Bulls.
After falling behind by a run early in the game on a pair of base hits to the Bulls in the top of the first, Elephants starter Jim Magrane regrouped in a hurry by pitching shutout ball over the next three innings to give his offense a chance to catch up, which was exactly what they did as the men in the familiar golden uniform answered in the top of the third with a run of their own on the strength of a single by Chen Jiang-ho and an RBI double by Huang Yun-sheng to tie the game at one-all.
The Bulls managed to reclaim the lead in the fifth with a triple by Chen Chih-wei that made it 2-1, only to see the Elephants fight back with a pair of runs in the sixth, courtesy of a two-run blast by Chang Ming-yen off Sinon starter Lin Chen-hua in a 3-2 affair.
Brothers tacked on an insurance run in the eighth to conclude the scoring, thanks to an excellent effort by closer Brad Thomas, who entered with one out in the eighth and retired all five batters he faced to preserve the win for Magrane.
Suffering his ninth loss of the season was Lin, who pitched three-run ball on seven hits over 5-2/3 innings of play in a game he could have won, if his offense had provided just a tad more run support.
Lions 3, Monkeys 11
Scoring 10 or more runs for the second straight game, the Lamigo Monkeys overwhelmed the Uni-President Lions in an 11-3 final at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium last night to sweep the three-game set over the weekend.
Red-hot slugger Chen Guan-ren’s two-run double off Lions reliever Huang Chih-long capped a five-run second that spotted Monkey starter Tseng Jau-hao a generous 5-0 lead. He ended up with a perfect 3-for-3 night to give him eight hits over the weekend.
The five-run lead proved more than ample for Tseng to pick up his third victory of the season as the right-hander out of National Chiayi University worked six swift innings of two-run ball on six hits, despite serving up a solo blast to the Lions’ Pan “TAKE” Wu-hsiung in the top of the sixth.
Also starring for the Primates were Chan Chih-yao and Lin Chih-ping, who went a combined 5-for-10 with an RBI to lead a rapid-firing attack that bulldozed through the Lions’ pitching with a dozen hits before all was said and done.
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