Records shattered all over the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Wednesday night as the La New Bears erupted for 22 runs to crush the Chinatrust Whales in a 22-2 final.
The spectacular display of offensive power that amassed to 26 base hits and an incredible 46 total bases not only salvage a 1-1 series-split for the Bears, but more importantly ended their season-high, five-game losing skid to restore some confidence in the La New club house.
“Teams go through some difficult stretches all the time, and ours hopefully will end with the big win tonight,” Bears manager Hong Yi-chung said after the game. His team had batted an embarrassing .093 with runners in scoring position during the five-game slide that brought La New all the way from atop the league standings to three games behind the league-leading President Lions.
Other records by the Bears on the night that were worth mentioning were Yu Jin-deh’s five-hit and five-run outings, which tied the league mark while the nine doubles by the Bears were also a new club-high (topping the previous record of eight).
The Bears offensive clinic scored in all but one inning (the fourth), with two or more runs tallied in seven of the eight innings in which they did score.
While Yu was the big winner with five hits in the game, the night also belonged to the Bears’ foreign slugger Gary Burnham, who drove in a half-dozen RBIs on a 4-for-7 night, including two doubles and a three-run home run.
The Bears hitters were in such groove that none of the six Whales pitchers in the game managed to escape without surrendering at least three runs each.
Realizing the benefit of the offensive outburst was Bears starter Hsu Wen-hsiung who won for the second time this season with six solid innings of two-run ball (only one earned) on four hits.
Picking up the loss on a night that the Bears could do no wrong was Whales starter Kao Min-jing who lasted less than two innings by allowing five runs on six hits with a pair of walks for his third setback of the year.
Bulls 5, Elephants 0
Yu Hsien-ming’s clutch single with the bases loaded broke a scoreless tie in the top of the seventh, and the Sinon Bulls went on to blank the Brother Elephants in a 5-0 shutout in Taichung to halt a two-game losing streak.
The classic pitchers’ duel between the Bulls’ Yu Wen-pin and the Elephants’ Danny Core kept the hitters off balanced with seven combined hits through the first six innings before the Elephants finally caved in during the seventh with reliever Yeh Yong-jeh on the mound after Core was ejected from of the game by league regulation in the sixth for hitting a hitter in the head with an unintentional fastball.
The Bulls would tack on three more runs in the ninth to make it 5-0 and that was how this one ended as the Elephants were held to two singles in the entire game with Yu Wen-pin going eight nearly flawless innings.
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