Mike McClendon tossed seven innings of four-run ball and Chou Si-chi homered for the second time in seven days as the Chinatrust Brothers toppled the EDA Rhinos 9-6 at Kaohsiung’s Cheng Ching Lake Baseball Stadium last night to avoid a three-game sweep on the road.
Three second-inning runs by the visitors quickly erased a 0-1 deficit in the first, with Hsu Chi-hung and Chang Chih-hao knocking in a run each on top of a wild pitch by EDA starter Gaby Hernandez that scored the runner from third.
The Brothers doubled their run total with three more in the third when Chou led off the inning with a solo blast off Hernandez before Chen Chia-chui and Pan Ting-hsiang singled in a run each to give Chinatrust a 6-2 lead.
After a two-run fourth that made it 8-2 in favor of the Brothers, the home hosts finally solved the solid pitching of McClendon in the bottom of the sixth when Cheng Chau-hang and Lin Cuen-sheng knocked in a run each, with a single and a double respectively to keep it a four-run game.
EDA kept the game interesting in the bottom of the eighth with Lin Yi-chuan homering off Brothers reliever Hsieh Rong-hao to pull within three and place runners on first and second to bring the tying run at the plate. However, that was close as they got as Hsieh calmly retired the next two batters he faced to strand a pair and end the Rhinos’ scoring threat.
McClendon picked up his eighth win of the season, improving to an 8-2 mark, while the loss was charged against Hernandez, who served up eight runs (six earned) on 13 hits over seven innings to even his season record at 3-3.
MONKEYS 3, LIONS 2
The Lamigo Monkeys took advantage of nearly three innings of perfect relief by their bullpen to hold off the Uni-President Lions 3-2 at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium last night to take the three-game home stand by a 2-1 margin.
Kao Kuo-ching’s RBI groundout scored Lin Chih-hsiang, who led off the game with a standup double to give the Cats a quick 1-0 lead, only to see the home Primates answer with a run of their own in the bottom of the same inning when Yang Yao-hsun legged out an infield single off Lions starter Wang Ching-ming and score two batters later on Lin “Chubby Kid” Hung-yu’s double.
After a scoreless second, the Monkeys offense struck again when Chen Chung-hsiu came up big with a two-out single to score the runners from second and third, giving his team a 3-1 lead.
Monkeys starter Hsu Ming-chieh regrouped in a hurry after allowing a run in the first by blanking the Lions offense from the second through the fourth before giving up the second run of the game on a solo shot to Liu Fu-hao.
The Lamigo bullpen took over to preserve the win for Hsu.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
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