Hu Chin-lung’s walk-off grand slam off Lai Po-kai broke a 5-5 deadlock in the bottom of 10th as the EDA Rhinos tamed the diehard Uni-President Lions 9-5 at the Cheng Ching Lake Baseball Stadium in Kaohsiung last night.
With the bases juiced, the Lions outfield drawn in and the fans on their feet in anticipation, the Rhinos captain crushed an offering from Lai that definitely caught too much of the plate, driving it into the right-center seats for the game-winning runs.
“It’s a great feeling to be able to hit one out, not to mention knocking in four to win,” Hu said after the game and being voted MVP.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The former major leaguer and current president of the Players Association drove in a season-high six runs on a three-for-five outing.
Even though the crowd did not get to see what they had come to see, Kao Kuo-hui’s milestone 40th homer of the season in his third-to-last game of the year, the outcome of the contest was just as sweet as the home Rhinos avoided what would have been an embarrassment with their bullpen squandering 4-0 and 5-4 leads in the eighth and ninth respectively to send the game into extra sessions.
Chang Chien-ming’s two-run homer in the bottom of the first got things moving in the right direction for the Rhinos, who added to the 2-0 advantage with one run each in the fifth and sixth to take a 4-0 lead through the seventh.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
However, the diehard Cats evened things up in a hurry with one monstrous swing by Lin Chih-hsiang with the bases loaded in the top of the eighth for a grand slam off normally reliable setup man Lin Yi-hao.
The Rhinos offense spotted its bullpen another lead in the bottom of the eighth, when Hu drove in a go-ahead run with a clutch two-out single to make it 5-4, only to see the Cats answer with their second rally in the top of the ninth, when Lin Chih-hsien doubled off Rhinos reliever Gaby Hernandez and scored on Chou Kuang-sheng’s single two batters later to make it 5-5.
Picking up the win following a blown save was Hernandez, who evened his season mark at 4-4, while the loss was charged against Chiou Tzu-kai, who allowed two of the three batters he faced in the 10th to reach safety in his first setback of the season.
Elsewhere, a seven-run fourth that included a three-run blast by Huang Chun-sheng, saw Brothers Baseball Club explode for 11 runs to outslug the Lamigo Monkeys 11-7 at the Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium last night.
With their fate in the post-season already determined and neither team wanting to risk injuries to their starting rotation, the matchup for the upcoming Taiwan Series between the two half-season champions turned into a battle of the benches, with both managers substituting freely to give their reserves some much-needed playing time.
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