Mike McClendon went the distance in a one five-hit gem and Chou Si-chi drove in three runs on a perfect three-for-three night as the Chinatrust Brothers broke a 2-1 game wide open with a three-run seventh to top the Uni-President Lions 7-1 at the Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium last night.
The win not only avoided what would have been a demoralizing series sweep at the hands of the Lions for the Brothers, but also increased their lead over the second-placed Cats to two games.
“It is a big win for us because we really had not played well as a team in the past two days, and a sweep would have set us back further,” Brothers coach Wu Fu-lien said after the game.
His troops held a slim one-game lead over the Cats heading into the contest after dropping two straight to reduce a three-game lead at the start of the weekend to a single game following Saturday night’s 11-1 trouncing.
The showdown between the top two clubs in the league finally lived up to its billing, with McClendon and his counterpart, Liao Wen-yang, holding the opposing offense to just one run through the fourth after the two teams traded a run apiece in the first, courtesy of Chou’s RBI single for Chinatrust and a leadoff homer by Lin Chih-hsiang for the Lions.
Neither team scored again over the next three frames, with both starters pitching into and out of trouble in the third and the fourth respectively, keeping spectators on the edge of their seats.
Liao’s luck finally ran out in the top of the fifth when he issued a one-out walk to Chou and allowed a single to Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min on the ensuing play to place runners at the corners before giving up a run on a wild pitch that made it 2-1.
Even though Liao got out of the inning without giving up another run, the damage was already done as McClendon mowed through the Lions lineup by retiring all but one of the next 16 batters he faced, on the way to his seventh win of the season.
“It is great to be able to help the team win against a great team like [the Lions],” the US right-hander said after the game.
His timely surge could be what is needed to keep the top-ranked Brothers flying high amid a hot pursuit of the tenacious Cats.
Taking the loss was Liao, who pitched well through the sixth in a 2-1 game before allowing two runners to reach safely in a rough seventh.
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