Wang Jin-yong's solo home run off Bears reliever Lee Fong-hua broke a 1-1 tie in the bottom of the eighth as the Brother Elephants edged past the La New Bears 2-1 in Sinjhuang on Sunday evening to sweep the two-game weekend series.
The veteran third baseman drove a 0-1 offering from the normally dependable Bears reliever over the leftfield wall for his third long ball of the year.
And that turned out to be the difference in the game as Wang Jing-li and Todd Moser combined to pitch a scoreless ninth for the Elephants to preserve the win for fellow starter Joey Dawley.
"I guess he [Lee] just left one over the plate for me to hit and I got all of it," Wang said after the game about his game-winning homer.
It was the second straight game that Lee lost, including Saturday night's late-game collapse that led to a 5-4 Elephants victory.
In the pitchers' duel between the Bears' Hsu Wen-hsiung and Dawley of the Elephants, neither offense was able to plate any runs over the first four innings, with Hsu working out of a couple jams unharmed and Dawley throwing no-hit ball.
That would change quickly in the bottom of the fifth when the Elephants finally got to Hsu with Chen "the Golden Warrior" Chih-yuan's sacrifice fly that scored Huang Cheng-wei who led off the inning with a double to lead it 1-0.
The 1-0 Elephants lead lasted less than an inning as the Bears promptly returned the favor with Jiang Chih-tsong's sacrifice fly to deep-right following a drawn walk by Raul Gonzalez and a ground-rule double by Chen Chin-fong to placed the runners on second and third with no outs to set the table for Wang's game-winning homer.
Picking up his ninth win of the year with eight solid innings of play was Dawley, who allowed a run on two hits while fanning eight and walking five.
Lions 4, Cobras 1
The President Lions also swept their two-game set in Luodong against the Macoto Cobras on Sunday by topping the serpents 4-1 to open a two-game lead over the second-place Bears.
A wild pitch by Cobras starter Andy Van Hekken that hit the Lions' Pan Wu-hsiung in the head in the top of the first cut the US pitcher's night short as Van Hekken was ejected as per league rules. Cobras skipper Wu Fu-lien was then forced to send in Lee Ming-jin.
Even though Lee would retire the next two Lions hitters to escape the inning unharmed, the Lions quickly adjusted in the top of the third, when they struck for three runs on four hits and an error by the shortstop to lead it 3-0.
That was more than ample for Lion starter Pete Munro, who earned his 13th win of the year by taking a shutout into the eighth before surrendering the Cobras' only run of the game on three singles.
Munro also lowered his league-leading ERA to a miniscule 1.63, nearly 70 points better than the league's next-best hurler.
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