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Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Revenge on the mind of South Korean NT...

Members of the South Korean NT are still smarting from the tough loss to CT in the 2003 Asian Baseball Championships, which also doubled as the Asian qualifier for the 2004 Olympics.

Read here for more details.

Taiwan loses to Lotte....

6-3 with rough performances by Yang and Lin.

Link


Link from MLB

Edited: 2/28/06

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Preseason NPB...

Lin blasted a 2 run HR for the Tigers in an 11-4 win over the Orix Buffaloes on Sunday. Lin hit cleanup and started in LF for his club.

There has finally been a Chih-Chia Chang sighting! The Seibu Lions pitcher came on in the 7th inning against the Fukuoka Hawks. Chang pitched 2 scoreless innings, with a K and a BB as the Lions and Hawks played to a 4-4 stand still.

Updates...

Courtesy of Maos, the NT beat the LA New Bears 8-1 in their final tuneup before heading to Japan. Hopefully the offense is able to carry over some of that momentum against their Asian opponents in the WBC.

Hong-Chih Kuo officially joins the NT today. Kuo was in Vero Beach, site of the Dodgers ST camp, fighting for a roster spot as a LH reliever.

CT will most likely face Japanese ace, Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Seibu Lions, although the pitcher was roughed up a bit in a recent warm-up game vs a NPB select squad. Matsuzaka has been dominant in his past matchups vs. CT's hitters. In '99, during the Asian preliminaries to determine Olympic berths, Matsuzaka pitched a complete game vs. the CT squad, giving up only 1 run while K'ing 13 batters. In the 2003 Asian championships, Matsuzaka pitched 7 innings vs. Taiwan and K'd 12 hitters, while only giving up 3 hits. Who got the only hits for Taiwan? You guessed it, Chin-Feng Chen and Cheng-Ming Peng, our absentee 2 big guns. Essentially, Daisuke overpowered the majority of CT's hitters.

Per reports out of Japan, Matsuzaka has seen video on the CT hitters and believes that he has found a weakness: the CT hitters have difficulty with pitches thrown on the inside half of the plate.

In other news, W.T. Lin started in LF vs. the Orix Buffaloes 2/25 and was 1 for 3 out of the 7 hole in the lineup.

Friday, February 24, 2006

NT wins vs. the Sinon Bulls

The NT's offense finally got it going as they steamrolled the Sinon Bulls 8-2. Chih-Sheng Lin continued his hot hitting and led the way with a HR. C.S. Lin, who played well in the Australian series, is being mentioned along-side with W.T. Lin as possibly being the clean up hitter for the NT.

C.C. Hsu, S.W. Tseng, W.M. Chu, and P.H. Keng pitched for the NT. Tseng, Chu, and Keng all pitched scoreless innings. Tseng was clocked as high as 92 mph, while Chu and Keng were clocked at 89-90 mph.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

CT NT vs. LA New Bears

The CT NT was held to a 0-0 draw by the LA New Bear pitching staff. The NT only managed to get 6 hits, all by the heart of the order with Yung-Chi Chen leading the way with 3 hits, followed by Tai-Shan Chang with 2 hits, and Chia-Hsien Hsieh with 1 hit. Chih-Sheng Lin played for the LA team and collected 2 hits.

Without C.F. Chen and C.M. Peng, one of Taiwan's biggest question marks is where will the offense come from? Thursday's game only muddled the concerns with the team's ability to generate timely hits and runs.

Good news for those of us in the US....

ESPN2 will carry all of Taiwan's round 1 games - live vs. Japan, and tape delay vs South Korea and China.

Link

It's official.....No Chen.....

Chin-Feng Chen along with Chien-Ming Wang have officially declined participation in the WBC. Hmmm, let's see, that means 4 of Taiwan's most talented players will be absent in the premier inaugural baseball event. No Chen, No Tsao, No Wang, and No Peng = slim chances of advancing out of the first round. However, in light of the bad news, Taiwan has surrounded a fairly young team with good veteran talent from the CPBL. For the youngsters, the WBC will provide them with invaluable experience and help gauge their progress against some of Asia's top talent.

Coach Lin has replaced Chen's roster spot by adding more pitching depth, going with LA New pitcher Wen-Hsiung Hsu

The best thing now is that Taiwan has nothing to lose and everything to gain when they play the underdog role and face off against star-studded Japanese and South Korean rosters.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

CT NT tidbits....

The NT will be in Japan on Feb. 28th when they face off against the NPB defending champs, the Lotte Marines at the Tokyo Dome.

Finally, Hanshin Tiger Wei-Tsu Lin has been looking good in spring training. In Tuesday's BP, he drilled 8 HR's in 64 swings, and is batting cleanup during intrasquad scrimmages. With the possible absence of Chin-Feng Chen, the South Korean media is already focusing on Lin as being the main offensive weapon for Taiwan.

Fightin' Words from Ichiro!!!

In Ichiro's own words, "I want to play games that make the other teams think they won't be able to beat us (Japan) for the next 30 years." The other teams refer to Taiwan, South Korea, and of course China. Ichiro must've forgotten that both Taiwan and South Korea have beaten Japan on the world stage. I hope Coach Lin posts that quote on the chalk board. If that doesn't fire up the players, I don't know what will.



Links:
Donga.com
Daily Yomiuri

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

CT NT News updates...

Roster changes
Removed: Pitchers - Yueh-Ping Lin & Wei-Yin Chen
Added: Pitcher Kevin Huang & IF Chia-Hao Chang

In final preparation for the WBC, the NT will play 2 CPBL teams in the next few days.

Schedule:
2/23 vs LA New Bears
2/24 vs Sinon Bulls
2/25 vs LA New Bears

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Red Sox sign 3 kids from Taiwan???

Well, per the official press release from the Red Sox website, the Red Sox have signed 3 players from Taiwan in 2005.

Although there has been no official release from the Red Sox about the players names, we do know that one of the guys is DJ Yeh. Speculation is that the 2 other kids are still in HS and have verbalized an agreement to sign with the Sox after they graduate from HS. The 2 kids are Chih-Hsien Chiang and Wang-Yi Lin, a RHP.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Yankees in Control....

Well, with the exception of A-Rod and Jeter, the majority of international players wearing the pinstripes have declined participation in the WBC. Jorge Posada joins Hideki Matsui, Mariano Rivera, and Wang as Yanks who've just said No to the WBC.

More on Wang's decision

Playing Catch Up...

Whew, been gone only for lil bit, but lots of news to report.

First of all, I got to hand it to all the moms and dads out there. Being a parent is one heckuva job - taxing, tiring, but rewarding and fulfilling at the same time.

Ok, back to baseball news:

The words straight outta C.M. Wang's mouth indicate that he will NOT participate in the WBC. That's bad news for the NT, but great news for anyone in the upper brass of the NY Yanks organization. Link

With Wang's announcement and the completion of the recent series in Australia, the NT has made some roster changes. Pitchers C.M. Wang and C.H. Cheng have been replaced by Ying-Feng Tsai and Wei-Yin Chen. Tsai pitched well against the Australian NT while Cheng got rocked in his outings, demonstrating poor control. Coach Lin has decided to go with 5 OF's, as C.M. Peng has also been removed from the roster (will not be ready in time from injury recovery). In his place, Coach Lin has decided to add another pitcher to the roster, Yueh-Ping Lin.

Speaking of the series in Australia, here are the final stats for how our boys did over there. In an 8 game series against the Australian NT, CT split the series against good competition. Y.C. Chen and C.S. Lin led the way for Taiwan's offense. It was good to see CPBL pitchers, C.M. Chu, Y.F. Tsai, and C.F. Yang do well. A lot of these guys will have to step up their game in the absence of Wang.

Also, Bigdaub posted a link to a great read on the Saga of Chin-Feng Chen - and how he was never given a reasonable chance by the Dodgers organization to show what he could do in the majors. Thanks for sharing that!

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

CT loses in close shootout....

CT lost to Australia in game 4 of the series 11-10. Despite the loss, Taiwan's key hitters got the ball rolling: C.S. Lin, Y.C. Chen, and C.L. Hu all blasted HR's for Taiwan.

BoxScore/PlaybyPlay Link

In a personal side note, I won't be posting for a while as my wife is going into labor today.
Until then, Fight On Taiwan!!!!

Monday, February 06, 2006

CT finally wins one vs. Australia...

Game # 3 vs the Australian NT was a much better performance by the CT NT. CT won 5-3 behind strong pitching support from CPBL pitchers Hsu and Chu. US-based pitcher, Chi-Hung Cheng struggled in the 2/3 of an inning that he pitched. Taiwan's offense also finally came to life, as it outhit Australia 9-3, with Chih-Sheng Lin and Yung-Chi Chen leading the way. Lin cracked the 1st HR for CT in the current Australian tour.

Thanks to Maos for getting the word out on the much needed victory!

Box Score/Play by Play link

No Lo.....

It looks like Ching-Lung Lo will not be available as an alternate for the NT. Reports have the Rockies denying Lo permission to participate in the WBC.

Link

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Close loss to Australia....

The CT NT lost a close game to Australia 1-0. Chien-Fu Yang pitched a good game going 7 innings and only giving up 1 earned run on 5 hits. However, Yang was unable to get any run support from CT's hitters. Chu and Keng each pitched 1 scoreless inning to keep CT in the game.

Play by Play link

Friday, February 03, 2006

Thursday, February 02, 2006

CT NT roster in Australia....

Pitchers:
1)Ming-Ching Kao - Amateur
2)Po-Hsuan Keng
3) Chi-Hung Cheng
4)Chia-An Huang - Mariners (MLB)
5)Chu-Chien Hsu
6)Ying-Feng Tsai - Bears (CPBL)
7)Chien-Fu Yang
8)Wei-Ming Chu
9)Sung-Wei Tseng

Catchers:
1)Chih-Kang Kao
2)Chun-Chang Yeh
3)Feng-Ming Chen

Infielders:
1)Chang-Ming Cheng
2)Chin-Lung Hu
3)Yung-Chi Chen
4)Chih-Sheng Lin
5)Seng Yang
6)Tai-Shan Chang
7)Yi-Chuan Lin - Amateur

Outfielders:
1)Chih-Yao Chan
2)Lung-Yi Huang
3)Chien-Ming Chang
4)Kuo-Hui Lo - Mariners (MLB)
5)Chun-Yu Kuo - Amateur

Non 30 man roster players denoted in bold with affiliation status.

More on CT NT game vs. Perth

During last night's 6-4 loss to the Perth Heat, starting pitcher Sung-Wei Tseng was impressive, going 6 innings and only giving up 1 earned run. The following pitchers, Chi-Hung Cheng and Chia-An Huang struggled and gave up the lead back to Perth. Cheng went 1.1 innings and gave up 3 runs, while Huang only pitched 0.2 innings. Closer Wei-Ming Chu did give up an earned run in the last inning, but did manage to strike out the side. Hitting stars for CT were: Tai-Shan Chang, Yung-Chi Chen, and Ching-Lung Hu.

For tonight's game against Perth, Coach Lin plans on starting Ying-Feng Tsai, followed by Chia-An Huang, Wei-Ming Chu, and Po-Hsuan Keng.

CT loses to the Perth Heat....

The Perth Heat from Australia defeated the Chinese Taipei NT (albeit not at full strength)
6-4 on Thursday.

Link