Liu Jung-nan turned in his best effort of the season thus far with five-and-a-third innings of two-run relief as the Brother Elephants doubled up on the Macoto Cobras 4-2 in Tianmu on Saturday evening.
The right-hander, who entered the game one out into the top of the third in relief of an injured Joey Dawley, answered the challenge by three-hitting the league-leaders in his longest relief outing of this season to earn his first win.
Other than a shaky fourth inning, in which he allowed both of the Cobras runs on a bases-loaded walk to Deng Shih-yang and a sacrifice fly by Kao Wei, Liu was in complete control of his game until he was pulled during the eighth.
In came a well rested Chuang Wei-chuan, who promptly retired the final four batters in order for his third save of the season.
The Elephants wasted little time solving Cobras starter Chang Hsien-chih with two second-inning runs, including Chen Guan-ren's one-run double and Fong Sheng-shien's RBI groundout, which scored Chen Guan-ren one out later.
Leading 2-0, the Elephants would replicate their success with another pair of runs in the third for a comfortable 4-0 advantage.
The Cobras would cut the Elephants lead in half with two runs of their own off Liu in the top of the fourth and threaten to add more with men on first and second and only one out.
Liu worked out of a serious jam with minimal damage by striking out Chen Keh-fan for the second out of the inning before inducing a lazy fly to center to end the inning.
Chang was tagged with the loss for the serpents.
Offensively for the Elephants,Chen Rei-cheng, Chen Guan-ren, and Chen Huai-shan batted a combined 6-for-12 with three RBIs.
Lions 7, Whales 1
Scoring early and often, the President Lions erupted for seven runs in a surprising 7-1 win over the previously red-hot Chinatrust Whales in Tainan on Saturday night to snap a five-game losing skid in Tainan.
Averaging only 1.4 runs per game over the five games prior to Saturday, the Lions came into the game as heavy underdogs against Whales staff ace Tseng Jau-hao.
But that did not seem to bother the cats a bit as they scored at least one run in three of the first four innings against Tseng for a solid 4-1 lead before padding it by three in the seventh and eighth to blow the game wide open in the end.
Starter Rob Cordemans of the Netherlands was brilliant for the Lions with seven solid innings of one-run ball on six scattered singles.
OFFENSE SHINES: First baseman Pan Chie-kai hit a solo homer in the fifth inning as all 10 batters Taiwan used contributed at least one hit toward their team total of 14 One day after their first shutout loss at the WBSC Premier12, Taiwan yesterday bounced back with a commanding 8-2 victory over the US, keeping their hopes for a spot in tomorrow’s final alive. The win in the Super Round marked Taiwan’s first triumph over the US at a top-tier international baseball tournament since 2003. Their previous win over the US was at the 2003 Baseball World Cup, with only one win in the previous 10 matchups since 1999. Yesterday’s game was tightly contested through the first six innings, with the margin never exceeding two runs. However, the tide turned in the top of
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