Ryan Glynn pitched seven innings of shutout ball, while Kao Kuo-ching homered on a 2 for 3 night as the Uni-President Lions defeated the Lamigo Monkeys 9-2 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium last night.
The win not only increased the Big Cats’ current win streak to five straight, but more importantly it propelled them into a tie with the Monkeys atop the standings as the two teams head in different directions, with the Monkeys dropping three in a row and seven of their past 10 to lose a once solid six-game lead over the Lions in the past two weeks.
Tu Chuang-hsun’s two-run double off Monkeys starter Cheng Cheng-hao got the Lions on the board in the bottom of the second, before Chou Guan-sheng’s liner up the middle made it 3-0 in the same inning.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
After a scoreless third, the Lions offense roared again in the bottom of the fourth, this time with a pair of singles and doubles to drive in four runs that spotted Glynn a commanding 7-0 cushion.
That was more than ample for the US right-hander to pick up his sixth straight win as he continued to stun the opposing hitters without giving up a run through seven innings, before being relieved.
Trailing by nine, the Monkeys avoided a shutout in one final gasp as they strung together three singles off Lions reliever Hsu Chih-chiang to score their first run of the game in the ninth, before tacking on another to settle with a 9-2 loss.
Tagged with the loss was Cheng, who gave up seven runs on six hits over 3-1/3 frames to fall to 5-3 on the season.
Offensively for the victorious Lions, Tu led all hitters with three RBIs on a night four different hitters had multihit games.
BULLS 8, ELEPHANTS 6
The Sinon Bulls avenged a tough loss to the Brother Elephants on Friday with an 8-6 win at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium last night to split the first two games of the weekend series.
Rookie southpaw Luo Cheng-long made the most of his sixth start of the season as he held the Elephants to six runs (only two earned) on five hits over 8-plus innings to improve to 2-2 for the year.
His 156 pitches marked a new high for total pitch count in more than five year to give the short-handed Bulls bullpen as much rest as possible.
Also starring for the Bulls were Lin Yi-chuan, whose two-run blast off Elephants starter Cheng Chi-hong put the Bulls ahead 2-0 in the opening inning, and Lin Tsung-nan, who racked up four hits on the night to end a dreadful 0 for 11 hitting slump.
After the Elephants tied the game at 2-all in the bottom of the first with a pair of unearned runs off Luo, the game was dominated by the Bulls as they went ahead with a three-run fourth and upped their lead to 8-3 before the Elephants rallied for three runs in the bottom of the ninth to make the final score somewhat respectable.
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