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04/04/2003 Archived Entry: "Taiwan Baseball News: Lions Stop Raging Bulls"
Taiwan Baseball News: Lions Stop Raging Bulls
President Lions 2 Sinon Bulls 1
By Andy Wong
Runs were hard to come by in Taiwan last night as Dominican native Maximo Nunez (2-0-0) tossed seven innings of shutout ball to help the President Lions to a 2-1 squeaker over the Sinon Bulls before 1,721 fans. Nunez dominated Bulls hitters all night as he yielded only four hits en route to winning the game MVP award.
Joining Nunez's fine effort last night was Bulls starter Chung-nan Tsai, a former No. 1 draft pick, who gave up two runs, both earned, in five innings. However, his effort wasn't good enough as he fell to 2-2-0 on the year. Tsai has pitched well this season with a 1.80 ERA, the fifth-best in the league. Following Tsai, reliever Wen-pin Hsu went three scoreless innings while closer Ramon Morel kept things close with a perfect ninth to give his team a chance to comeback in the bottom half of the inning. Morel has five saves in as many opportunities this season and has been one of the main reasons why the Bulls became the fastest team ever to reach ten wins. The previous record was held by the China Times Eagles who took 13 games. The Bulls did it in 12.
The Lions scored once in the second and fifth innings before the Bulls rallied a run off setup man Yang-kai Chen, who pitched 1/3 of an inning, giving up one earned run. Jung-yang Tsao was immediately summoned from the bullpen to replace Chen and Tsao pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings for his third save of the 2003 Chinese Professional Baseball League season.
For the Lions, the man nicknamed "Sugarcane", center fielder Kang-ling Huang, went 1-for-4 with a run scored while first baseman Chuan-jia Wang went 1-for-4. The power hitting first baseman became the first player in league history to hit three consecutive home runs in a single game last week in a series against the Makoto Gida that the Lions easily swept, outscoring them 41 to 13.
The Lions and Bulls continue their series tonight as the Leos are only 0.5 games of the Bulls for the CPBL lead. The game between the Makoto Gida and the Brother Elephants that was supposed to be played last night was postponed until April 22.
CPBL Notes: The Brother Elephants have announced that last season's 16-game winner, American pitcher Jonathan Hurst, is back.
Today's games (6:35 p.m. Taiwan Time)
President Lions (10-4-0) at Sinon Bulls (10-3-0)
Makoto Gida (6-9-0) at China Trust Whales (7-7-1)
Linescore
President Lions 2 Sinon Bulls 1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Lions 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 8 0
Bulls 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 7 0
WP: Maximo Nunez (2-0-0)
LP: Chung-nan Tsai (2-2-0)
SV: Jung-yang Tsao (3)
Game MVP: Maximo Nunez
Attendance: 1,721
Game time: 3:05
2003 Chinese Professional Baseball League standings
W L T GB Pct.
1. Sinon Bulls 10 3 0 --- .769
2. President Lions 10 4 0 0.5 .714
3. China Trust Whales 7 7 1 3.5 .500
4. Makoto Gida 6 9 0 5.0 .400
5. First Securities Agan 5 8 0 5.0 .380
6. Brother Elephants 3 10 1 7.0 .230
