Pan "Du Du" Wei-luen pitched five innings of two-run ball and Tilson Brito drove in a pair of runs with his league-best 19th homer of the year to lead the President Lions past the La New Bears in a 9-2 road victory in Kaohsiung on Tuesday night.
Pan, the staff ace for the Lions has won 10 straight after starting off the season with a 0-2 mark to lead the league in total victories, tying the Lions club record for consecutive wins set by former starter Kuo Jin-hsing in 1996. Du Du is now one win shy of the all-time league record for consecutive victories (11) that was set by former Weichuan Dragon player Kuo Yuan-chih in 1998.
Offensively for the visiting cats, Brito celebrated winning the Offensive Player of the Month award last month with his second homer in as many games this month to break the MVP jinx that has spread around the league.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
The contest between the two powerhouses of the South saw the Lions striking first against Bears starter Randy Leek of the US with three quick runs in the top of the second on a run-scoring throwing error by the Bears defense and a two-run single by Yang Dong-yi.
The Bears would close the gap to within two in the bottom of the same inning with Tseng Hao-jui's solo blast to deep-left off Du Du in a 3-1 affair before the Lions tacked on another run in the top of the third on the strength of Kao Chih-kang's RBI single.
Brito's thunderous swing that drove the ball out of the ballpark in a hurry in the fourth promptly made it 6-1 in favor of the Lions before they added three more runs to the lead to put the game away long before the final out.
Chen Chin-fong's solo shot to right-center leading off the bottom of the fourth in a 6-1 game was as close as the Bears could get against the stellar pitching of Pan before bullpen standouts Lin Cheng-fong and Yen Chuen-hao combined for four shutout innings to keep the potent Bears attack at bay for the rest of the game.
Picking up the loss was Leek who remained winless at 0-3 in his three starts with the Bears since joining the team in the middle of last month. He allowed six runs (three earned) on seven hits over four innings while fanning one and walking three.
Failure to come up with timely hits cost the Bears the game as the eight hits and six walks they collected off the Lions pitchers only led to two meager runs, both from solo homers, on the night.
Elephants 16, Bulls 5
Five first-inning runs, all coming with two quick outs, got the Brother Elephants off to a great start as they rolled over the Sinon Bulls in a 16-5 rout in Hsinchu on Tuesday to start the week in grand style.
After the Bulls struck for three runs in the top of the third to make it 5-3, the Elephants would string together five singles in the bottom of the same inning to plate five more runs that had starter Alfredo Gonzalez blowing the game wide open at 10-3.
The Elephants would put four more runs on the board in the fifth and sixth, highlighted by game-MVP Lin Ming-shien's two-run single on a four-RBI night, to lead by 11 before settling for the eventual 16-5 final.
Brother starter Liao Yu-cheng won his second game of the year with six-and-two-thirds innings of decent work, allowing five runs (only one earned) on 11 hits while punching out four and walking two.
He received plenty of run support in the game as the Elephants lineup erupted for 16 runs on as many hits to overwhelm a struggling Sinon club that had lost five of their past six.
Gonzalez was credited with the loss in his shortest start of the season as he dropped to a 4-5 mark for giving up eight runs on nine hits.
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