Erupting for 10 runs over the first three innings, the Chinatrust Brother Elephants demolished the Uni-President Lions 18-2 at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium yesterday afternoon to take the day game of a day-night doubleheader.
The win not only nipped a season-high eight-game slide for the Elephants, but also kept them from being swept for the first third straight series.
Starter Chen Hung-wen pitched his best game of the season by far with six scoreless innings of four-hit ball to keep a potent Lions lineup at bay. He handed the game over to the Elephants bullpen with a 16-0 lead at the start of the seventh inning, which went smoothly, before reliever Luo Guo-hua served up three straight hits to lose the shutout bid in a two-run eighth.
Photo: Liao Yao-tung, Taipei Times
That was the only inning that the Lions managed to plate any runs as the Elephants returned the favor with two runs in the ninth to run away with a lopsided win.
Chen was credited with his second win of the season to improve his season mark to 2-3, while the loss was charged to his counterpart Luo Ching-lung, who lasted only two innings with six allowed runs (only four earned) on eight hits to drop to an even 3-3 record this year.
Offensively for the Elephants, Huang Shih-hao’s four-for-six outing with five RBIs led an attack that teed off against the Lions pitching for 20 hits, their best effort at the plate this season by far.
Lions 8, Elephants 4
The joy of victory lasted only a few hours for the Elephants as the Lions roared back by topping them 8-4 in the night game of the doubleheader to take the three-game set by a 2-1 margin.
Pan “Du Du” Wei-luen won for the second time in as many starts with seven innings of four-run ball on nine hits.
Taking the tough loss for the Elephants was starter Lin Yu-ching, who held a 4-3 lead through the fifth inning, despite allowing a two-run home run to the Lions’ Pan “TAKE” Wu-hsiung in the bottom of the first, before being chased in the sixth with two runs charged against him in a losing cause.
Monkeys 8, Rhinos 4
The Lamigo Monkeys also clinched their three-game set against the EDA Rhinos with an 8-4 thrashing of the hosts at the Cheng Ching Lake Baseball Stadium in Greater Kaohsiung last night.
Veteran righty Hsu Ming-chieh won his third straight decision with six innings of three-run ball on six hits to improve to 4-2 this season.
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