Cheng Kai-wen went the distance with nine innings of shutout ball and Chang Cheng-wei drove in a pair of runs on a three-for-four night as the Chinatrust Brothers humbled the second-ranked EDA Rhinos 4-0 at the Cheng Ching Lake Baseball Stadium in Kaohsiung last night to clinch the weekend series on the road.
It was the second straight complete-game effort for the Brother staff ace as he claimed victory No. 7 to tie two other hurlers for most wins in the league.
The shutout outing with three strikeouts also dropped Cheng’s team-best earned run average (ERA) to 3.22, while upping his league-leading strikeout total to 64 in 11 starts.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
The showdown between Cheng and EDA former big leaguer Chuckie Fick lived up to its hype through the fifth with the Brothers holding onto a slim 1-0 lead, thanks to a leadoff triple by Chang in the top of the fourth that set up Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min’s RBI infield single.
After a scoreless fifth, the men in the golden uniform struck again against Fick in the sixth when Chang led off the inning with a single, stole second and scored on Jim Negrych’s single to left that made it 2-0.
The lead proved more than ample for Cheng, who retired all but two of the final 14 batters he faced to record the first complete-game shutout win of the season in the league.
Charged with his second loss of the year was Fick, who allowed four runs on seven hits over 6-1/3 frames, in a game he was outshone by a superior Cheng.
MONKEYS 8, LIONS 1
The top-ranked Lamigo Monkeys bounced back from consecutive losses for just the second time this month by thrashing the Uni-President Lions 8-1 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium last night to even the series at one win apiece.
The potent Primate lineup that had been held to two runs by the Lion pitching the night before in a disheartening 3-2 loss teed off against Lion starter Wang Ching-ming with six quick runs over the first three innings to spot starter Jared Lansford a 6-0 lead.
Even though the home Cats got a run back in the fourth on the merit of Pan “TAKE” Wu-hsiung’s solo blast to break up the shutout bid for Lansford, the run turned out to be the only one that the Monkey pitching would give up as Lansford cruised through the seventh in a four-hit gem before the Monkey bullpen followed with two innings of hitless relief to deny the Lions any chance of a comeback.
Picking up his seventh win of the season was Lansford, who lowered his team-best ERA to 2.86, while Wang was tagged with the loss for surrendering six runs on seven hits over 2-2/3 innings of work.
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