T-Rex bounced back nicely from a disappointing loss on Tuesday with a convincing 8-2 victory over the Sinon Bulls on Wednesday night to salvage a one-game split in the two-game series in Taichung.
The win not only gave the emerging T-Rex their fourth win in five games, but also pulled them to within three games of the top-ranked La New Bears in the latest league standings.
Rookie left-hander Lai Jung-nan went the distance for T-Rex, turning in nine solid innings of two-run ball on nine hits, six strikeouts and no walks for his third win of the season.
PHOTO: CHAN CHAO-YANG, TAIPEI TIMES
What had been a classic seesaw battle between two promising rookies, Lai for T-Rex and Shen Fu-ren for the Bulls, in a 3-2 affair, suddenly became a T-Rex rout as they plated five unanswered runs in the decisive eighth to run away with the big win.
T-rex wasted little time getting on the board when Kuo Ming-ren singled off Shen in the bottom of the first, reaching second on a walk, before scoring on Hsieh “the Ugly” Jia-shien’s RBI-single to the right.
The lead would last less than an inning as the Bulls responded with a run of their own in the top of the second on Chen Chih-wei’s one-run single off Lai to even things up at 1-1.
They would have made it into a big inning in the second with runners on second and third and only one out against the T-Rex if Lai had not gotten the next two hitters to pop up on a pair of harmless fly outs to strand both runners.
Wu Jia-hui’s timely double in the left-center gap in the bottom of the second quickly gave the T-Rex their second lead of the game at 2-1, before both starters settled in and kept the opposing hitters scoreless over the next two frames.
Trailing 1-2, the Bulls would rally for another run in the top of the fifth off Lai to tie the game, when Chang Jien-ming singled in Wu Bo-hong who also singled and stole second to get himself into a scoring position.
The tie would last less than an inning again as the T-Rex skidded ahead 3-2 in the bottom of the same inning, with Chou Si-chi leading off the inning with a triple and scoring two outs later on a sacrifice-fly by Wang Chuan-jia to set the stage for the eighth-inning scoring burst that sealed the game.
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