Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min teed off against the dmedia pitching with a 3-for-4 effort and a pair of RBIs from the plate on Wednesday night to pace the Brother Elephants to a 7-2 win at Hsinchu Municipal Baseball Stadium.
The red-hot slugger who wowed a worldwide audience at the Summer Olympics in Beijing by going a team-best 9-for-29 with three doubles continued his dominance at the plate by hitting a combined 5-for-7 with a home run and three RBIs to humble the opposing pitching staff.
The win not only helped avenge a tough loss to the T-Rex the previous night, but also salvaged a two-game split in the first of two series of the week for the Elephants as they looked to keep a firm grip of the third-and-final spot for postseason play.
Wednesday night’s contest began with the visiting T-Rex jumping to a 1-0 lead in the top of the fourth on a two-out single by Wang Chuan-jia before the Elephants answered with a big four-run inning in the fifth capped by a two-run single by Chia Chia.
Dmedia closed the gap to 4-2 on a run-scoring double by Wang in the sixth but the Elephants managed to tack on three more in the bottom of the seventh to put the game out of reach long before the final out was recorded.
Picking up the big win for the Elephants with seven sharp innings of work was starter Tseng Jia-min who allowed a pair of runs on seven hits while fanning five and walking three.
Suffering the loss for the T-Rex with seven allowed runs (only one earned) in 6-1/3 innings was starter Cory Bailey who fell to 7-5 for the year after starting off the season with four straight wins.
LIONS 10, WHALES 5
The President Lions doubled up on the Chinatrust Whales in a 10-5 win at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Wednesday to restart their season after the Olympics break with a bang.
Pan Wu-hsiung led a fierce Lions attack that ripped 16 hits off a generous Whales staff on the night with a 4-for-5 outing, including three doubles to set a new career-high, and earn the game-MVP honor.
And that was more than plenty to back up fellow starter Louis Pote of the US who improved to 12-4 for the year with the win, going seven decent innings with five allowed runs on nine hits and eight strikeouts.
The Lions wasted little time getting to Whales starter Steve Watkins with three quick runs in the top of the first on run-scoring drives by Pan and RBI man Tilson Brito.
They led 6-0 in the top of the third with thee more runs off Watkins that chased the American righty before the Whales came back with three runs of their own on a base-clearing three-run double by Wilton Veras of the Dominican Republic.
After the Whales scored their fourth run of the game to fall within two of the Lions in the fourth, the Lions roared again with four more runs during the fifth and sixth for a commanding 10-4 before the eventual 10-5 final.
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