Powered by Liu Fu-hao’s grand slam on a five-RBI night, the Uni-President Lions roughed up the EDA Rhinos 11-2 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium yesterday to even the weekend home stand at one win apiece.
The speedy outfielder made his anticipated return from injury, giving his club an 11-1 lead in the bottom of the fourth. His team went on to bag the victory and snap a three-game losing skid.
Kao Guo-ching’s two-out double off Rhinos starter Andy Sisco scored the runner all the way from first in the bottom of the first to give his team a 1-0 lead.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
The lead would last just an inning as the Rhinos quickly answered with a run of their own when Chen Kai-lung led off the third inning with a single off Lions starter Chiang Cheng-yen, took second on a sacrifice bunt and scored on Hu Chin-lung’s RBI single.
That set up what turned out to be a six-run third for the Cats, who sent 10 men to the plate to ring up four singles and a pair of doubles off a struggling Sisco to put the game away long before the final out.
Picking up the win was Chiang, who remains unbeaten at 3-0 with two allowed runs on five hits over seven innings, while Sisco was charged with his second loss of the season, allowing seven runs on as many hits over three frames.
BROTHERS 5, MONKEYS 3
Chen Tzu-hao’s sly RBI-triple on a bluffed bunt attempt broke a three-all tie in the top of the seventh as the Chinatrust Brothers defeated the top-ranked Lamigo Monkeys at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium to even their weekend set.
It was by far the biggest hit of the season for the second-year slugger, who executed one of baseball’s toughest plays to perfection by drawing in the Lamigo infield with a sacrifice bunt before pulling back to connect on a liner to the right-center gap for a clean triple.
Even though the win stopped a two-game losing skid for the men in gold, the Monkeys still clinched the first-half title, with the second-placed EDA Rhinos’ loss dropping them out of title contention.
The Monkeys and Brothers traded three early runs over the first two innings of play before turning the contest into a defensive struggle, as neither club managed to score again until the top of the seventh.
Chinatrust starter Cheng Kai-wen also saw his personal-best shutout streak end at 18 innings by allowing the three first-inning runs (only one earned) to the Primates. He escaped the loss, as the Brothers offense bailed him out with the bat to keep his season record at 8-3.
Reliever Chiou Ping-rei was credited with his first win of the season for his two innings of scoreless relief, while the loss was charged to Monkeys starter Tseng Meng-cheng.
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