Tseng Song-wei threw six effective innings of one-run ball in a five-hitter to lift the Brother Elephants past the Lamigo Monkeys 3-2 at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tianmu last night, avoiding a three-game sweep by the resurgent Primates.
The win also helped the Elephants reclaim a half-game lead in the standings over the second-placed Monkeys, who had taken two in a row from the Elephants to assume top spot in the standings for a day.
Back-to-back errors by the Monkeys’ defense placed a pair of runners on in the top of the third as the Elephants cashed in on the errors by scoring both runners to take a 2-0 lead.
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times
They would tack on another run in the fifth after Chang tripled off Monkey reliever Kuo Wen-kai with two outs and scored on Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min’s single that made it 3-0.
Trailing by three, the Primates finally got on the board against Tseng in the top of the sixth with a run on the strength of a walk and two singles.
The score remained 3-1 through the bottom of the eighth until the Monkeys struck again in the top of the ninth with a run off Brother Elephants closer Brad Thomas.
However, that was as close as they got as the American lefty calmly struck out Tseng Hao-jui for the second out of the inning, before inducing a fly out to right to preserve the win for Tseng Song-wei.
Lions 11, Rhinos 3
The Uni-President Lions followed a great win on Saturday night with an 11-3 trouncing of the EDA Rhinos at Cheng Ching Lake Baseball Stadium in Greater Kaohsiung last night to take the weekend series by a 2-1 margin.
Kuo Dai-chi homered for the road Cats in the opening frame to spot fellow starter Luo Ching-lung a 2-0 lead, which Luo gave right back in the bottom of the first, but that did not stop the Lions from plating three in the fifth inning and four in the eighth to blow the game wide open.
Kuo ended up with three RBIs on a two-for-three night to lead a Lions attack that had four players with multi-hit performances.
Picking up the win was Luo, who quickly settled in after the two-run first by tossing one-run ball over the next five frames to improve to 7-4 for the year.
The former US minor league standout for the Colorado Rockies has steadily become a dependable member of the Lions’ rotation in his first season as a professional in Taiwan.
Taking the loss for the Rhinos was reliever Lin Ying-jeh, who entered in the third in relief of starter Lin Keh-chien and served up three runs over 2-1/3 innings to drop to 6-4 for the season.
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