An eight-run fourth proved decisive as the La New Bears beat the Brother Elephants 13-5 in Kaohsiung on Wednesday evening.
The win not only dealt the Elephants’ their first back-to-back losses in nearly three weeks, but also tied the league mark for most games with double-digit scoring by a team in a season at 21 for the Bears, leaving them poised to break the mark set by the Uni-President Lions in 2007.
“It was a big win for us considering the fact that they [the Elephants] have been playing so well of late,” Bears manager Hung Yi-fong said after the game.
Chen Rei-chen’s two-run single off Bears starter Victor Zambrano in the top of the first gave the Elephants a quick 2-0 lead before the home team came back in the next inning with three runs of their own, courtesy of a two-run triple by Lin Chih-ping and a wild pitch by Elephants’ starter Lee Hao-ren that scored Lin from third to make it 3-2 to the Bears.
The Elephants evened things up in the fourth with an RBI single by Liu Geng-hsin before the Bears erupted for eight decisive runs.
Zambrano retired the side in the fifth before the bullpen took over and kept the Elephants to two runs in the final four frames.
Failure to keep the pitches around the plate cost the Elephants the game as they issued 10 walks to the Bears.