Makeup week continued in the Chinese Professional Baseball League this week with the top-ranked Macoto Cobras scoring a 10-3 win over the Chinatrust Whales in Sinjhuang on Wednesday to gain a one-game lead over the La New Bears in the standings.
Jeremy Hill remained undefeated in the month of June with his fourth win in as many games, allowing three runs on nine hits in seven-and-one-third innings. He received plenty of run support on the night, most notably the eighth-inning pinch-hit grand slam by Chou Si-chi that blew open an otherwise fairly close 5-2 contest, en route to the 10-3 final.
The game began with the pitchers having their say early with three quick scoreless innings before the Cobras offense jumped all over Whales lefty Shen Yu-jeh for five runs in the top of the fourth on six singles and a devastating defensive error to lead the Whales 5-0.
The Whales countered with a run of their own in the bottom of the same inning, courtesy of Kao Jung-chiang's solo blast off Hill to deep-left, and tacked on two more runs in the sixth on an RBI single by Tseng Han-chou and Chen Jien-wei's one-run double to trail the serpents 5-3. But that was all the offense that they could produce against the Cobras pitching.
Hsieh "the Ugly" Jia-shien's solo home run in the eighth, his 13th of the year, was icing on the cake for the Cobras. The cleanup slugger now trails the Lions' Tilson Brito and Brother Elephants great Peng "Chia Chia" Cheng-min by two for most homers in the league.
Picking up the loss for the Whales was southpaw Shen Yu-jeh, who did not realize any advantage against the five left-handed batters on the Cobras lineup. He remained winless for the season at 0-4 with two holds and a save to his credit.
Elephants 6, Bulls 0
US pitcher Joey Dawley tossed six-and-one-third strong innings of shutout ball and Lin Ming-shien drove in a pair of runs to lead the Brother Elephants past the Sinon Bulls in a 6-0 blanking at Taichung on Wednesday night.
The veteran right-hander US improved to 5-2 for the year with the win.
The Bulls did not exactly help their own cause by committing four deadly errors that led to three unearned runs for the Elephants as they dropped two straight to trail the Cobras by three-and-a-half games with five games remaining in the first half.
None of the 10 combined hits that the Bulls offense managed off Dawley and reliever Wu Jung-yi led to a single run as they failed to come up with the clutch hits all game long, stranding a total of 15 runners on the night.
Seven of the 15 runners left stranded actually made it to scoring positions, including two golden bases-loaded chances for the Sinon hitters.
"Lack of timely hitting really killed us tonight. We could have easily scored at least five runs and made a game out of it," a disgusted Sinon manager Huang Chung-yi said after the game.
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