Lin "Little Chick" En-yu pitched brilliantly over nine strong innings for his third complete-game shutout of the year as the Macoto Cobras beat the Sinon Bulls 4-0 final in Taichung on Thursday night for their third straight win.
The Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player in the Chinese Professional Baseball League last season scattered three harmless hits to the defending champs while striking out a dozen to run his league-leading strikeout total to 194 for his 16th win of the year, tying him with La New staff ace Kenny Rayborn for the most wins this year.
Lin took a no-hitter into the fifth before Hsu Guo-long's one-out double broke it up. The serpents enjoyed a 3-0 lead that resulted from a three-run third on outfielder Kuo Ming-ren's RBI single and veteran slugger Wang Chuan-jia's two-run liner, both off Sinon starter Alfredo Gonzalez of the Dominican Republic.
PHOTO: LIAO HUI-TUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The Cobra's offense would score another run in the eighth, courtesy of Wang on a liner to shallow-right, to make it 4-0 in favor of the visitors.
His 194 strikeouts propelled Lin past Huang "Golden Arm" Ping-yang's 1993 right-handed record of 184, leaving him just nine shy of the all-time single-season strikeout record of 203 set by former Cobras great Lin Ying-jeh in 2004.
Cobras 3, Bulls 1
Wu Jau-hui's two-run double off Sinon reliever Kuo Yong-chih broke a 1-1 tie in the top of the 11th as the Cobras prevailed in a 3-1 decision to hand the Bulls their second loss of the week on Friday night.
Wang's groundout to second with runners at the corners gave the Cobras an early 1-0 lead in the third before the home hosts countered with a run of their own in the fourth on a solo homer by Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan.
That was all the runs that either club managed through nine innings as starters Chang Hsien-chih (Cobras) and Yang Jien-fu (Bulls) held their ground to keep the opposing offenses at bay, setting the stage for Wu's extra-inning clinching hit.
Cobras setup man Lee Ming-jin was credited with the win for pitching two innings of one-hit relief while right-hander Robert Averett earned his first save of the year for getting the final three outs..
Elephants 10, Whales 9
Five ninth-inning runs by the Brother Elephants helped them to overcome a three-run deficit as they edged past the Chinatrust Whales in a 10-9 final at Douliou on Thursday night for their second straight come-from-behind win in as many days.
Trailing 8-5 at the start of the ninth, the Elephants batted around for five runs against a shaky Whales bullpen on six hits, highlighted by Yang Bo-ren's three-run blast off Whales reliever Shen Yu-jeh, giving them a 10-8 advantage.
The Whales scored a run in the bottom of the ninth off game-winner Chuang Wei-chuan to cut the Elephants' lead to 10-9, but that was as close as they got as Brother closer Wang Jing-li struck out Chi Jung-lin for the final out.
It was the second straight game in which Shen had blown a multi-run lead in the ninth before taking an eventual loss.
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