The top-ranked EDA Rhinos avenged an embarrassing loss to the Uni-President Lions on Saturday night with an 11-0 blanking of the Cats at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium last night to avoid being swept in the three-game road series.
Victims of a 15-5 blowout to the Lions the previous night, the Rhinos needed the win to keep pace with the Chinatrust Brothers and also to avoid being swept by their archrivals in southern Taiwan.
Fortunately for the visitors, that was precisely what they did as they jumped all over Lions starter Chiang Cheng-fong with three runs in the top of the third on the strength of four singles and a deadly error by the hosts’ defense on a play that would have held the Rhinos to one run in the inning.
That was all the runs that either team would plate over the next five frames, with Chiang holding his ground through the sixth and his successors doing the same, while Rhinos starter Freddy Garcia of Venezuela scattered five hits over seven shutout innings and closer Lin Yi-hao tossing a scoreless eighth to keep the shutout intact.
Offensively for the victors, their 3-0 lead after the eighth widened to 11-0 in what ended up being an eight-run ninth, when they sent a dozen men to the plate to rough up Lions relievers Wang Ching-ming and Chiang Chen-yen. Lin Wei-en collected two hits alone in that inning on a three-for-five outing to lead all players in hits.
Picking up his 11th win of the year was Garcia, who showed no signs of aging by pitching deep into the game to beat counterpart Chiang Chen-fong and hand him his fourth loss of the year.
Monkeys 3, Brothers 1
The Lamigo Monkeys also avoided being swept by the Chinatrust Brothers with a late-game surge to top the men in the golden uniforms at the Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium last night.
Yu Teh-lung’s clutch single after Huang Hao-ran’s leadoff double in the top of the eighth broke a one-all tie before Lin “the Chubby Kid” Hung-yu followed with a two-out single with runner on second to make it 3-1.
That lead was more than enough for the Lamigo bullpen to convert into a win as setup man Chen Yu-hsun and ace closer Miguel Mejia combined for a scoreless eighth and ninth to preserve the victory for game-winner Huang Wei-cheng.
Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-ming’s RBI single off Monkeys starter Lin Hua-ching gave the Brothers a quick 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first, a lead that lasted until the sixth when Huang Hao-ran led off the inning with a double and scored two batters later on Liang Chia-rong’s single to even things up at one-all.
Monkeys reliever Huang Wei-cheng was credited with the win for his 2/3 innings of perfect relief, while the loss was charged to Brothers starter Chiang Chung-cheng.
The Rakuten Monkeys on Sunday downed the CTBC Brothers 2-1, handing the hosts their second consecutive loss in the best-of-seven CPBL Taiwan Series at the Taipei Dome. Monkeys’ ace starter Pedro Fernandez of the Dominican Republic dominated on the mound, cruising through six scoreless innings before giving up a run on a wild pitch in the bottom of the seventh inning. He gave up only three hits and walked two batters in a 93-pitch outing, giving his Taoyuan-based team an edge. Offensively, the Monkeys’ leadoff batter Lin Li hit Brothers starter Brandon Leibrandt’s pitch over the center-field wall in the game’s first at-bat,
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