Nee Fu-deh pitched eight-and-one-third innings of one-run ball with a career-high 13 strikeouts to lead the Chinatrust Whales past the dmedia T-Rex 6-1 at the Ilan County Baseball Stadium in Luodong on Thursday night and end a five-game losing skid for the marine creatures.
The soft-spoken lefty who has quietly emerged as one of the league’s top hurlers despite a mediocre 3-3 record, made a strong case on his behalf by taking a 6-0 shutout one out into the ninth before giving up the lone T-Rex run on a fielder’s choice to lose the shutout bid.
He was immediately replaced by reliever Huang Hong-ren in the interest of protecting his arm before Huang promptly retired the next two hitters to preserve the win.
PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The contest began with the Whales needing only two innings to get to dmedia starter Willy Lebron of the Dominican Republic with four runs in a big second, highlighted by Lee Yi-wei’s two-run single to right to jump to a 4-0 lead.
Even though Lebron would not allow another run over the next four innings with a great second effort before being pulled at the start of the seventh, his offense did not exactly give him the run support he was looking for, because Nee had the dmedia hitters’ number.
Picking up the easy win was Nee, who improved to 3-3 for the year with an overpowering performance to top Lebron as the dmedia starter was dealt his second straight loss in as many games for allowing four runs (three earned) on eight hits over six innings to remain winless at 0-2 for the season.
Bears 8, Bulls 2
The La New Bears made it four in a row with an impressive 8-2 road victory over the Sinon Bulls in Taichung to sweep the two-game set against their archrivals on Thursday evening.
Just like the Whales in Luodong, the Bears also had a shutout going late in the game before the Bulls’ Huang Chung-yi broke it up with a two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth to avoid what would have been back-to-back shutout losses at home. The Bulls were shut out 0-5 the night before.
After three scoreless innings, the rambunctious Bears finally broke through with four runs off Bulls starter Michael Connolly, thanks to a bases-clearing three-run double by Huang Long-yi and an RBI-single from Yu Jin-deh on the ensuing at-bat in a 4-0 game.
They would add another run in the sixth off Wang Guo-jin on a wild throw by the Bulls reliever that scored the Bears runner all the way from second before blowing the game wide open in the eighth with a pair of runs on an opposite-field triple by Chen Chin-fong.
Chen Fong-min’s run-scoring groundout in the ninth made it 8-0 in favor of the Bears before the Bulls put up two meaningless runs in the bottom of the inning to take away the shutout.
Bears starter Hsu Wen-hsiung was credited with his fifth win of the season for blanking the Bulls in six scoreless innings on five hits, while his counterpart Connolly was hit with the loss for digging himself into a four-run hole from which he never recovered.
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