Chen Chin-fong’s solo homer off Yeh Yong-jeh broke a 3-3 tie in the bottom of the eighth and the La New Bears went on to narrowly defeat the Brother Elephants 4-3 at the Kaohsiung County Baseball Stadium on Wednesday evening for their third straight win.
The former Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder, who holds the distinction of being the first Taiwan-born player to set foot in the US Major League, timed the offering from Yeh perfectly and drove it over the leftfield wall for his first long ball of the season.
Gary Burnham also hit a three-run blast for his third round-tripper of the season off Elephants starter Danny Core in the bottom of the fourth that gave the home Bears a 3-1 lead.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
Chen “Golden Warrior” Chih-yuan got things started in the right direction for the visiting Elephants by taking Bears starter Andrew Loraine deep in the top of the first with a solo homer to give his team an early 1-0 lead.
The lead would last for three innings as Core kept the Bears off the board by scattering a pair of hits through the first three innings before the Bears finally made him pay with Burnham’s three-run shot that put the Bears ahead 3-1 in the fourth.
Trailing by two, the Elephants managed to cut the Bears’ lead to a run with Chu Hong-seng’s RBI single in the top of the seventh before Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min doubled in the eighth and scored on Chen Guan-ren’s clutch single up the middle off Bears reliever Hsu Yu-wei to tie the game up at 3-3, setting the stage for Chen Chih-fong’s late-game triumph.
Picking up the win with one-and-one-third inning of scoreless relief was lefty Huang Chin-chih, whose first appearance since being traded to the Bears from the dmedia T-Rex was considered a success given that he had been on and off the disabled list for much of the past three seasons.
Taking the loss for the Elephants was Yeh, who made only one mistake over two innings of otherwise impeccable relief, a pitch to Chen Chin-fong that caught too much of the plate, for which Chen made him pay dearly.
Lions 8, Bulls 4
The President Lions salvaged a series split by doubling up on the Sinon Bulls in an 8-4 final at the Tainan City Baseball Stadium to avenge Tuesday night’s series-opening loss.
Four different Lions hitters had multi-hit games on the night, led by game-MVP Tilson Brito’s 2-for-3 batting with a homer and two RBIs. Last season’s league MVP, Kao Guo-ching, also hit his second home run of the season for the Lions, a two-run shot over the rightfield wall to raise his league-leading RBI total to 19 for the year.
The contest began with the home cats striking first in the bottom of the first when Brito ripped a liner up the middle to score the runner from second for a quick 1-0 lead.
After the Lions made it 2-0 with another run in the second, the Bulls finally got on the board in the third with Chang Jien-ming’s solo blast off Lions starter Louis Pote in a 2-1 game.
That was the extend the Bulls were able to hang with the Lions as they scored three runs each during the third and fourth to open an 8-2 lead after four innings and held on for the 8-4 final.
Pote was credited with his second win of the season for his six innings of work. He allowed four runs (three earned) on a half-dozen hits.
Suffering the loss for the Bulls was Pote’s counterpart Shen Fu-ren, who gave up five quick runs over just two-and-one-third inning of play on six hits in his third loss of the year.
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