The Lamigo Monkeys tripped up the EDA Rhinos 7-4 at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium last night to take the weekend series at home.
It was the third straight win the defending champs garnered over the first-half winners, as they extended their current win streak to a season-high eight in a row, making them the team to beat after a disappointing first half.
Chung “Yoyo Man” Cheng-yo’s two-run double off Rhinos starter Lai Hong-cheng down the third-base line, followed by Yu Teh-lung’s two-run single, gave the Primates a quick 4-0 lead in the bottom of the first.
Lamigo would tack on another run in the second on the strength of Lin Chih-sheng’s sacrifice fly to call it a night for Lai.
Even though the Rhinos bullpen managed to cool off the Primates with a scoreless third with reliever Lin Chi-wei on the mound, he was not spared in the fourth as the Monkeys hitters rang up back-to-back base hits to set up Tsan Chih-yao’s RBI groundout to make it 6-0.
After Lin Chih-ping’s run-scoring single upped the Lamigo lead to 7-0 in the sixth, the Rhinos finally broke through in the eighth against Monkeys starter Tseng Jau-hao with a run when Chang Tsong-yi led off the inning with a single and scored three batters later on Chang Chien-ming’s single.
Trailing by six, the Rhinos managed to plate three in the top of the ninth off setup man Hsu Ming-jeh. However, closer J.D. Durbin was able to stop the bleeding by inducing a clutch double play before striking out the final Rhinos hitter to keep the victory intact.
Picking up the win was Tseng who tossed one-run ball on four hits over 7-1/3 innings of work to beat his counterpart Lai for his sixth win of the year.
LIONS 6, ELEPHANTS 3
Kuo Jung-yo’s two-run single with the bases loaded broke a 3-3 tie in the top of the eighth as the Uni-President Lions scored six unanswered runs after falling behind 0-3 to run away with a 6-3 win at the Sinjhuang Baseball Stadium in New Taipei City last night.
The victory not only put the Cats in the win column for the first time in the second half, but more importantly snapped a nine-game slide for them as they looked to regain their winning form.
With the game tied, the Elephants had a chance to reclaim the lead in the top of the seventh with the bases loaded and one out. However, Lions relief specialist Kao Chien-san came up big by inducing a comebacker to trigger an inning-ending double play.
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