Close plays dominated CPBL action on Sunday with the Brother Elephants edging past the Sinon Bulls by a 2-1 margin at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tianmu and the Uni-President Lions downing the La New Bears 3-2 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium.
Liao Yu-cheng of the Elephants outpitched his Sinon counterpart Lin Keh-chien in a battle between two nine-game winners by tossing one-run ball over eight solid innings of work to become the league’s first local ten-game winner.
“It’s one of those games that no one deserves to lose,” Liao said after the game.
Lin, who also lasted through the eighth in a quality start, allowed a pair of early runs in the third, which turned out to be the difference in the game. It took the Elephants three straight singles, all with two outs in the top of the third, to score two runs off the Sinon rookie sensation.
Huang Cheng-wei led off the inning with a single and made it to second two outs later before scoring on Chou Si-chi’s liner off Lin to right to put the Elephants 1-0 up.
After Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min followed with another single to put the runners at the corners, Chen Guan-ren came through with a clutch single that gave his team a 2-0 advantage.
Liao, who took a 2-0 shutout one out into the sixth before giving up an RBI single to Sinon’s Lin Yi-chuan, had one of his best games of the season, improving to 10-5 for the year with a team-best 3.37 ERA.
LIONS 3, BEARS 2
Pan “Du Du” Wei-luen earned his 10th win of the season by throwing one-run ball over seven strong innings to lift the Uni-President Lions past the La New Bears 3-2.
The win gave Du Du double-digit wins for a record-setting seven straight seasons, breaking the old mark of six set by former Bulls great Osvaldo Martinez (2000-2005).
He also became the eighth man to reach the 700-strikeout plateau in league history when he fanned seven to give him 705 in six-plus seasons.
The Lions capitalized on a wild Jose Silva by drawing an unusual five walks off the La New starter to score two runs without even getting a hit off the former major leaguer.
They tacked on a third run in the seventh on Pan Wu-hsiung’s two-out single to make it 3-1, which proved crucial as the Bears rallied for a run in the ninth before falling short to lose this one by a run.
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