The red-hot Topco Scientific Falcons won the title in the inaugural season of the Popcorn League by topping top-seeded Taiwan Cooperative Bank 18-3 in seven innings in Game 4 of the Championship Series at the Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium last night to take the best-of-five series by a 3-1 margin.
Brahiam Maldonado’s perfect four-for-four, hitting with a pair of RBIs led a Falcons lineup that teed off against the Bankers pitching on a 23-hit effort to humble the regular-season champs.
Also starring for the victors were Yang Dai-chun and Kan Ming-yen, who ripped out three hits apiece with seven combined RBIs to account for the bulk of their team’s total run production.
Photo courtesy of the CTBA
In a contest that was all Falcons, the Bankers actually took a 1-0 lead in the opening frame, when Kody Kirkland’s sacrifice fly scored the runner from third to give his team what ended up being their only lead on the night.
After falling behind by a run, the Falcon offense quickly came to the rescue as they plated two in the bottom of the same inning, courtesy of a pair of deadly errors by the Bankers’ defense that failed to turn a double play that could have kept the Falcons from scoring in the inning.
That was the extent to which the Bankers were in the game as Topco Scientific would score at least three runs from the third through the sixth, highlighted by a five-run fifth that featured eight straight hits at one point to put the game away long before the final out was recorded.
By the time all was said and done, the best way to stop the Falcon offense was the mercy rule that ended the game after the seventh, with the Falcons leading by well over 10 runs.
“It is awesome to come away with the winner’s trophy after all the hard work we’ve done,” a very pleased Falcons manager Wu Si-hsien said after the game.
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