Brothers blank Monkeys, go second

By Paul Huang / Contributing reporter





The Chinatrust Brothers rode the right arm of Wang Tzu-an, who tossed seven shutout innings of four-hit ball to blank the Lamigo Monkeys 6-0 at the Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium last night.

The win not only gave Chinatrust a 2-1 edge in the north’s weekend series, but it also improved their season record to 4-3, good enough for second place in the standings.

After the Monkeys missed a golden scoring opportunity in the top of the first in which they stranded two at the corners, the hosts went to work against Ramon Garcia by plating three off the Monkeys starter in the bottom of the second to grab an early 3-0 lead.

Uni-President Lions right fielder Lo Kuo-hua sprints to catch a foul ball in the third inning of their CPBL game against the EDA Rhinos in Kaohsiung yesterday. Photo: Chang Chung-i, Taipei Times

The men the golden uniforms made it 4-0 in the bottom of the third on the strength of Chou Si-chi’s two-out double, a score that stood through the sixth with neither lineup managing to produce offensively against Garcia and his counterpart Wang.

Chinatrust finally strung together a single and a double to set up Lin Wei-chu’s two-run single in the seventh that extended their lead to 6-0, before the bullpen took over, with Lin Keh-chien pitching a scoreless eighth and closer Guan Da-yuan following up with a perfect ninth to keep the shutout intact.

Picking up his first win of the season was Wang, while Garcia was charged with the loss for serving up all six of the Brothers’ runs on 13 hits over seven frames in his first loss of the year.

LIONS 6, RHINOS 5

Kuo Dai-chi’s clutch single off Lo Chia-jen with a runner on second scored the go-ahead run in the top of the ninth for the Uni-President Lions as they rallied from as many as three down with four unanswered runs to top the EDA Rhinos 6-5 at Kaohsiung’s Chengching Lake Baseball Stadium last night.

In a game that was all-Rhinos for the most part through the sixth inning, the visitors finally roared back with two runs in the eighth when Mai Chia-yi and Chen Yung-chee connected on RBI singles off setup man Lin Yi-hao and closer Lo respectively to tie the game at 5-5.

That was the game-breaker as Kuo managed to rise to the occasion by delivering the knockout blow in the ninth to keep the Rhinos from sweeping the three-game home stand over the weekend.

Pan “Du Du” Wei-lun was credited with his first win of the year after allowing five runs (only two earned) on nine hits over eight solid innings, while Lo was tagged with the loss for coughing up the lead in the eighth, before allowing the game-winner in the ninth.