The Lamigo Monkeys concluded a four-game home stand with a convincing 5-1 victory over the Uni-President Lions at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium yesterday.
The win marked the second straight game that the Monkeys pitchers held the Lions to a lone run, capping the total runs allowed by the Primates to just four over three games.
Starter Hsu “Cat Man” Ming-chieh was not at his best, but he managed to pitch out of trouble on several occasions to hold the Lions to only one run on the eight hits he gave up over seven innings in his first start in more than a month.
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times
“[Being a starter] is different from my previous relieving role, so it takes some getting used to,” Hsu said about being promoted to the starting role after spending more than a month in the bullpen.
The Monkeys needed little time getting to Justin Thomas with two quick runs off the Lions starter when Yu Teh-lung doubled, took third on a wild pitch and scored on Lin Chih-sheng’s sacrifice fly, before back-to-back singles by Lin “Chubby Kid” Hung-yu and Chen Chun-hsiu made it 2-0 in favor of the hosts.
Even though the Lions scored a run off Hsu in the top of the second to halve the Monkeys’ lead, that was as close as they got as the Primates tacked on another run in the third with Chen’s solo shot and never looked back.
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times
Picking up his second win of the year was Hsu, while the loss was charged to Thomas, who lasted just an inning on two allowed runs and three hits.
RHINOS 7, BROTHERS 6
The EDA Rhinos held off a three-run rally in the ninth by the Chinatrust Brothers to escape with a 7-6 win at the Cheng Ching Lake Baseball Stadium in Kaohsiung yesterday.
Closer Lo Chia-jen started the ninth inning with a 7-3 lead and served up three runs to the men in the golden uniforms.
Even though two of the three runs came as a result of a two-run error by second baseman Lin Wei-ting on a routine ground-out that he failed to field cleanly, it was clear that Lo was struggling with his location.
Fortunately for the Rhinos, Huang Sheng-hsiung entered with two outs in the ninth in relief of Lo and got Chen Tzu-hao on a fly-out to right with men at the corners for the game-ending out.
Starter Gaby Hernandez was credited with the win for his seven shutout innings as he improved to 3-1 for the season, while the loss was charged to his counterpart Shaun Garceau, who fell to 0-2 in what could have been his last game in Taiwan.
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