Trouble persists for the once league-leading EDA Rhinos as they dropped four straight and nine of their past dozen (as of Wednesday) to surrender leads as large as four games over the next-best team in the standings as recently as two weeks ago.
Leading a list of troublesome reasons is a generous pitching staff that has given up more than eight runs per contest over the past dozen games, including four in which they served up double-digit runs to the opposing team. The Rhinos’ ERA has risen more than a full run over the same span to a whopping 5.42, only slightly (0.30) better than the last-placed Chinatrust Brothers.
“Pitching can be streaky at times, and a problem that a particular player is experiencing can also be contagious,” commentator Huang Chung-yi said of the problematic EDA pitching.
Huang served as team captain and manager for the Rhinos’ predecessor, the Sinon Bulls, and is likely to be inducted into Taiwan’s Baseball Hall of Fame when he becomes eligible.
Poor mid-inning relief suffered by the Rhino bullpen has spread to starting pitching over the past week, with Tsai Ming-chin, Mike Loree and Evan MacLane turning in subpar performances.
In addition to poor pitching, the much feared Rhinos offense has also taken a break from dominating the opposing pitchers earlier in the season by plating a mediocre 4.75 runs per game in the past dozen, compared with more than seven runs per game (7.17) in their previous dozen.
Even though the top of the order, consisting of Hu Chin-lung, Chang Chien-ming, Kao Kuo-hui and Lin Yi-chuan, is still hitting the ball well, with .350 batting averages or better, the rest of the lineup is not following up, batting under .250, over 100 points below to strand the many runs.
“In this day and age, where hitters are ganging up on the pitchers, you had better bat over .300 as a team if you want to remain competitive in this league,” baseball commentator Pan Chung-wei said of the unusually large number of high-scoring games that has occurred in the first two months of the season.
The Rhinos are no longer winning the close games like they did earlier in the season, as they hold a 1-4 record in games decided by two or fewer runs in their past dozen, compared with a 7-2 mark during the first month of play.
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