Behind the solid pitching of their local starting trio -- Hsu Chu-jien, Lin Ying-jeh and Lin En-yu -- the Macoto Cobras have finally climbed out of the bottom tier of Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) standings to become legitimate contenders.
Their 9-1 record in the past 10 contests against top-caliber teams such as the Sinon Bulls and the Brother Elephants to fall within a game of the league-leading Bulls is the best indication that the former Taiwan Major League (TML) squad, which was once served as punching bag for other teams in the CPBL has bloomed into a formidable opponent.
Shouldering the bulk of the load in their recent successes were right-hander Hsu Chu-jien, winner of his past three straight with a 0.98 earned run average, lefty ace Lin Ying-jeh, winner of two in a row with 17 strikeouts in his last three starts, and rookie sensation Lin En-yu with his league-best ERA of 1.65.
PHOTO: MACOTO COBRAS
"No one has taken us Cobras seriously for quite some time and that's how we like it, because teams won't know what hit them when we come in and kick their butts," Cobras power hitter Hsieh Jia-shien said.
The three-time former home-run champ of the TML pocketed his first-ever monthly MVP honor in the CPBL last month for his .408 batting average and 11 RBIs.
The serpents opened the week with a 4-0 win over the President Lions in Tainan on Tuesday, where Lin En-yu tossed his first career complete-game shutout in front of a hostile Lions crowd in a four-hit gem.
The righty out of the National College of Physical Education and Sports upped his team-leading record to 5-1 in his best performance of the season.
Hsieh drove a high fastball from Lions starter Pan "Du Du" Wei-luen in the top of the third over the center field fence for a solo homer, his eighth of the year, in a 3-for-5 night to lead the Cobras offense.
Cobras 10, Lions 3
Doug Linton of the Lions took a 3-2 lead into the seventh inning on Wednesday and saw his chance for the win disappear into the night when Cobras pinch hitter Cheng Jing-yi crushed a pitch over the right field wall for a game-turning two-run blast.
The Cobras then opened up the flood gate with six more runs in the final two innings to beat the big cats in a 10-3 final.
Lin Ying-jeh was credited with the win for allowing three runs on eight hits in 6-2/3 innings of work while Linton fell to 4-6 for the year with the loss.
Elephants 5, Whales 2
Peng "Chia Chia" Cheng-ming's two-run shot off Whales' top reliever, Shen Yu-jeh, gave the Elephants a 3-2 lead in the sixth that they would not relinquish in a 5-2 decision in Taichung on Tuesday.
It made a winner out of 38-year-old right-hander Jonathan Hurst, who scattered nine hits for a pair of runs while fanning eight in as many innings to en route to his fifth win of the season.
Elephants 4, Bulls 3
The Elephants found their way into the win column again on Thursday when Tsai "A-Bian" Fong-an drove in the go-ahead run in the top of the 10th off reliever Jeff Andra with a chopper through the right side of the infield for a 4-3 extra-inning win.
The 8,000-plus on hand in Taichung to see the showdown between the two local home-run hitters Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan of the Bulls and "Chia Chia" of the Elephants got their money's worth as each went deep against the opposing pitcher once for a pair of two-run homers.
Bulls starter Osvaldo Martinez's bid for his league-high eighth win fell short when Elephants switch hitter Chen Huai-shan delivered a blooper single to shallow right off reliever Ho Ji-shien to knot things up at 3-3 in the top of the eighth.
Second-year reliever Wu Bao-shien got the win for pitching three innings of perfect relief while his counterpart Andra suffered the loss to end an 11-game winning streak in Taichung.
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