The red-hot Lamigo Monkeys continued their winning ways with a big 10-3 come-from-behind win over the resurging EDA Rhinos on Wednesday to extend their win streak to three straight.
The win showed several essential qualities that have made the Primates the team to beat in the league about one-third into the season as they demonstrated tremendous patience at the plate despite falling behind early, fully exploited the opposing team’s weakness when it counted the most and got the big outs when they needed them.
Both clubs entered into the contest with a full head of steam, with the Primates having won two straight and seven of their past eight and the Rhinos having won four in a row. However, with the game and the top spot in the standing on the line, it was Monkeys who rose to the occasion.
The battle between the top two squads in the league was a classic pitchers’ duel between a pair of foreign arms: Mitch Atkins of the US for the visiting Primates, and countryman Gaby Hernandez for the at-home Rhinos.
The Rhinos held a 2-1 lead after four innings of play.
However, after a 33-minute rain delay in the fourth that prompted the Rhinos to replace Hernandez, the Primates showed why they were the better team by pouring on eight unanswered runs over the next two frames to turn the game around, thanks to their tremendous patience at the plate against the Rhinos’ relief pitching that often went at least three pitches into every at-bat.
In addition to good patience at the plate that resulted in a solid three-to-four strikeout to walk ratio after the fourth inning, the Primates also hit the Rhinos where it hurt the most by getting base runners on against the struggling Rhinos mid-inning relief to string together a five-run fifth and a three-run sixth.
Lin “Chubby Kid” Hung-yu’s three-run blast off reliever Chien Yo-chia with two outs in the sixth was a case in point as the slugger out of the Chinese Culture University unloaded a pitch into the leftfield seats for the game-breaker.
Last, but not least for the Monkeys was the crafty pitching of Atkins, who allowed just three runs on eight hits by getting some clutch outs when it mattered the most to keep the damage to a minimum. The US righty allowed at least one runner on in all but one of the seven innings he pitched, but managed to strand a total of eight Rhinos runners, four of whom were in scoring position to give his team a chance for the win.
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