After four games into the second half of the season, the Macoto Cobras (3-1-0) remain the only unbeaten team in Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League after a pair of blowout wins over the Chinatrust Whales in Luodong, Yilan earlier in the week.
Tuesday's game was an eye-opening experience for the Yilan spectators as they witnessed the serpent offense mow through the Whales staff in an 18-1 romp.
The Cobras shattered five team records in the process, setting new highs in most runs (18), hits (22), RBIs (16), total bases (29), and at bats (53) in a single game.
PHOTO: LA NEW BEARS
After two scoreless innings, the Cobras had six consecutive singles against Whales starter Hsieh Cheng-hsun in a five-run third inning.
Reliever Tseng Jau-hao didn't fare any better against the potent Cobras attack, which tallied six more runs in the fourth and fifth to give the serpents a rare double-digit lead at 11-0.
The serpents struck again in a six-run eighth that sent 10 batters to the plate for an unprecedented 18-0 cushion.
PHOTO: LA NEW BEARS
The Whales finally got on the board two outs into the ninth on catcher Wang Hsin-ming's line drive to right field to prevent the shutout.
Cobras budding star Hsu Chu-jien pocketed his club-leading, eighth win of the season by tossing five shutout innings of three-hit ball, while Hsieh absorbed the loss in a game that was over by the fourth inning.
Cobras 6, Whales 1
Same ballpark, same teams, and similar result in the contest on Wednesday when the Cobras showed their deadly fangs again in a 6-1 final that made a winner out of starter Chen Chih-cheng.
In just his second start of the year, after a long stint in the Macoto bullpen, the third-year righty was nearly unhittable, allowing an unearned run on three hits over 5-1/3 frames for his first victory since last September.
Offensively for the serpents, slugger Hsieh Jia-shien went deep against Whales starter Kao Jien-san when he deposited a pitch from Kao well into the right-center bleachers for his league-leading 15th home run of the year.
The heart of the Cobras order, consisting of Hsieh, Wilton Veras and Mario Encarnacion, collectively went 5-for-12 with three RBIs to account for the bulk of the run production, taking turns against a troubled Whales staff that sent four different pitchers out to the mound.
With the loss, Kao fell to 1-2 for the year.
Bears 6, Bulls 2
Getting two homers from a lineup that had not been producing many runs as of late, the Bears took a quick 3-0 lead against Osvaldo Martinez of the Sinon Bulls en route to a 6-2 triumph in Hsinchu on Thursday.
American lefty Matt Beech evened his record at 2-2 for the season with a winning effort against the defending champs that kept the high-powered Bulls lineup off the board until the two-run eighth.
Lin Chih-sheng and Tseng Hen-chang homered for the Bears to boost an offense that averaged just two runs per game in their previous seven meetings.
Lions 7, Elephants 3
Six unanswered runs in the final two innings of the game helped the President Lions overcome a 3-1 deficit to beat the Brother Elephants 7-3 in Tainan on Thursday in Game 1 of their three-game series.
The Elephants gained the 3-1 advantage in the top of the sixth on first baseman Tsai "A-bian" Fong-an's three-run blast off Lions rookie starter Lin Yueh-ping.
The lead would last less than an innings after the Lions rallied with three runs in the seventh on the strength of three consecutive singles off Elephants starter Nakagomi Sin and a double-steal that led to a 4-3 advantage.
Three more insurance runs were added in the eighth, thanks to another three-hit sequence following a leadoff walk from reliever Wang Jing-li that put the game out of reach for the Elephants.
Set-up man Chang Chih-chiang earned his first win of the year after pitching a scoreless eighth.
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