Luther Hackman pitched seven scoreless innings of five-hit ball and Tilson Brito and Chen Lien-hong knocked in a run each as the Uni-President Lions beat the Sinon Bulls 3-0 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium on Wednesday night.
Hackman, the recently converted starter out of the Lions bullpen, whose previous outing on the mound had not been particularly sharp, bounced back nicely with a great effort on Wednesday, while Brito and Chen provided just enough offense against decent Bulls pitching to pull off the big win at home.
The win not only helped the Lions salvage a two-game split versus the Bulls following Tuesday night’s tough 1-2 loss, but also gave them a one-game lead over the La New Bears, who lost to the Brother Elephants in Sinjhuang on Wednesday.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
Wasting little time getting to Bulls starter Wilton Chavez of the Dominican Republic, the big cats opened the bottom of the first with a leadoff double by Hsu Fong-bin and strung together four straight hits to jump ahead 3-0.
The score remained unchanged for the rest of the game as Chavez quickly regrouped and kept it close through the sixth before being relieved by fellow righty Tsai Ming-jin. Hackman took the shutout through the seventh before Kao Jien-san and Lin Yueh-ping chipped in a scoreless inning apiece to keep the shutout intact.
Unable to overcome the shaky start with virtually no run support was Chavez, who dropped his second in a row despite allowing just three runs on seven hits.
ELEPHANTS 7, BEARS 3
The Brother Elephants spoiled the La New Bears’ return to northern Taiwan with a 7-3 trouncing at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang on Wednesday to pick up their fourth win in five games.
Starter Danny Core took a 7-0 shutout two outs in the eighth before giving up a single and back-to-back run-scoring doubles to lose his second shutout bid of the year.
Core would nonetheless improve to 7-3 for the year with the win, allowing a pair of runs on five hits over 7-2/3 strong innings of work.
Offensively for the victorious Elephants, Chen “Golden Warrior” Chih-yuan and fellow slugger Chen Guan-ren batted a combined 6-for-9 with three RBIs to account for nearly half of their team’s total run production.
Taking the fall on behalf of the Bears was starter Chang Chih-jia, who lasted less than two innings in his worst start of the year by far with six allowed runs on as many hits to drop to a 2-4 mark.
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