Jose Leon’s walk-off home run broke a 1-1 gridlock in the bottom of the ninth at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Thursday evening, edging the dmedia T-Rex past the Chinatrust Whales 2-1 to snap a three-game losing skid.
The Puerto Rican slugger, who spent three seasons in the Majors with the Baltimore Orioles (2002 to 2004) and was brought in by the T-Rex in late July to give their ailing offense a big boost, showed exceptional power by driving a pitch from Whales starter Nee Fu-deh over the left-center wall to clinch the victory.
Leon also scored dmedia’s only other run in the game by grinding out a single in the fourth and reaching home two hits later on Huang Shih-hao’s blooper up the middle.
T-Rex reliever Yen Chih-chung was credited with the win for his two innings of hitless relief to beat Nee, who dropped his 12th of the year despite pitching his third complete game of the season.
LIONS 8, ELEPHANTS 3
The Uni-President Lions won their fourth in a row by topping the Brother Elephants 8-3 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium on Thursday night to pull within a half-game of the league-leading La New Bears.
The win also cut the Lions’ magic number to “2,” meaning that either two more wins by them or two more losses by the Bears over the final two weeks of regular-season play will clinch a first-round bye for them in the upcoming postseason.
Taking the mound for the home cats in his first game of the season was newcomer Giancarlo Alvarado of Puerto Rico, who threw six strong innings of two-run ball on five hits for his first win.
The five runs that Alvarado was spotted by his offense over the first two innings, highlighted by Pan Wu-hsiung’s three-run blast off Elephants starter Tseng Jia-min in the bottom of the second, also made things a lot easier on the veteran righty as he looks to provide another reliable arm to solidify the Lions starting rotation.