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04/12/2003 Archived Entry: "Taiwan Baseball News: Lions Roar To Top of Standings; Players In Fender-Bender"
Taiwan Baseball News: Lions Roar To Top of Standings; Players In Fender-Bender
By Andrew Wong
President Lions 8 First Securities Agan 6
With their solid hitting, the President Lions now lead the 2003 Chinese Professional Baseball League standings by one game over the Sinon Bulls. Yesterday afternoon, it was first baseman Chuan-jia Wang who went 3-for-3 with two runs scored and three RBIs to pace the Lions to a 8-6 victory over the First Securities Agan in front of 1,348 fans at Kaoshung.
Wang, who joined the Leos in 1999 after a three-season stint with the Bulls from '96-'98, picked up the Game MVP award. Coming into the game, he was tied with the Bulls' Tai-shan Chang for the CPBL lead in home runs with five and second in RBIs with 18. Wang, a career .291 hitter coming into the 2003 season, also spent two years with the now-defunct Jung Kuo Bears.
Finalists for the Game MVP award included left fielder Hung-yuan Lin, who went 3-for-6 with one run scored and one run driven in. Lin, nicknamed the "Wild Hog", came into the game batting .329 with three homers and a league-leading 21 RBIs. Right fielder Lien-hung Chen went 2-for-4 with two RBIs as the Lions out-hit the Agan 17-15. Acquired in an off-season three player trade from the Whales, Chen came into the game with the league's second-best batting average of .400. Also, Chen is the older brother of Chin-feng Chen, who became the first Taiwanese player to play in a major league game last
season when he got called up with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Rookie standout Wei-luen Pan went five solid innings for the Lions, giving up two runs, both earned, to notch the win and improve to 5-0-0 on the year. Jung-yang Tsao pitched 2/3 innings for his sixth save of the season. Agan starter Wen-hsiung Hsu gave up five runs, four earned, in four innings to drop to 1-5-0.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Lions 3 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 8 17 0
Agan 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 2 2 6 15 1
WP: Wei-luen Pan (5-0-0)
LP: Wen-hsiung Hsu (1-5-0)
SV: Jung-yang Tsao (6)
Game MVP: 1B Chuan-jia Wang (Lions)
Attendance: 1,348
Game time: 3:39
President Lions 5 First Securities Agan 1
In the second game of a double-header to makeup a postponed April 9 game, the President Lions still found the spark they needed to give the First Securities Agan a robotic beating, 5-1. The Agan logo, well, is a picture of a blue robot.
Dominican native Maximo Nunez pitched a complete game, giving up one run, which was earned, and picked up the Game MVP award. Nunez improved to 2-2-0.
Feng-hua Lee started for the Agan, throwing 6 2/3 innings. He gave up five runs, three earned, and dropped to 1-1-0. Venezuelan John Acosta finished things up, pitching 2 2/3 scoreless innings.
With the two sweeps, the Leos improved to 15-5-0 to takeover the CPBL standings lead from the Sinon Bulls, who are at 13-5-0 and are one game back. The Bulls play the 6-12-0 Makoto Gida tonight at 5:05 p.m. (Taiwan time). Meanwhile, the Agan fell to 5-14-0 and last in the CPBL standings and are 9.5 games back of the Lions.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Lions 1 1 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 5 10 1
Agan 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 6 1
WP: Maximo Nunez (2-2-0)
LP: Feng-hua Lee (1-1-0)
Game MVP: Maximo Nunez
Attendance: 1,789
Game time: 3:01
Brother Elephants 4 China Trust Whales 3 (11 innings)
The Brother Elephants scored one run in the top of the 11th inning yesterday to beat the China Trust Whales 4-3 in front of 6,745 onlookers.
Elephants' ace Jonathan Hurst pitched nine innings, giving up three runs, two earned, before giving way to closer Ruen-win Hsiao, who pitched two scoreless innings to pick up the win. Hsiao improved to 2-2-0. Hurst gave up three runs in the second inning on an error by his team.
Last season's MVP Chao-jee Sooh started the game for the Whales, going 5 1/3 innings and giving up one unearned run. Dominican native Maximo Rosa relieved Sooh after one batter in the sixth and gave up a run, earned, in 1 2/3 innings.
Short stop Rue-chang Chen went 1-for-4 with one run scored and two RBIs for the Elephants while second baseman Shun-shian Fong went 2-for-4 with one RBI. For the Whales, second baseman Yueh-liang Lin went 1-for-4 and third baseman Chien-wei Chen went 1-for-3.
The Elephants improved to 6-11-1 and are 7.5 games back of the league-leading President Lions, who swept their series with the First Securities Agan yesterday in a double-header. The Whales are 10-8-1 and four games back. The Elephants and Whales play again tonight (5:05 p.m. Taiwan time) at Tian Mu Stadium.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 R H E
Elephants 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 1 4 7 1
Whales 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 7 2
WP: Ruen-win Hsiao (2-2-0)
Attendance: 6,745
Game time: 3:45
AUTO ACCIDENT: Three Sinon Bulls and one President Lions player were involved in an automobile accident last week.
Three of the players were alright while one is still in hospital in stable condition.
The car, driven by Bulls' pitcher Chi-shian Ho, smashed into a tree at night. Ho had a blood-alchol level under the legal limit.
All four players were fined one month's pay.
Today's Games (5:05 p.m. Taiwan time)
At Tian Mu: Brother Elephants (6-11-1) at China Trust Whales (10-8-1)
At Shingchu: Sinon Bulls (13-5-0) at Makoto Gida (6-12-0)
2003 Chinese Professional Baseball League standings
W L T GB Pct.
1. President Lions 15 5 0 --- .750
2. Sinon Bulls 13 5 0 1.0 .722
3. China Trust Whales 10 8 1 4.0 .556
4. Brother Elephants 6 11 1 7.5 .353
5. Makoto Gida 6 12 0 8.0 .333
6. First Securities Agan 5 14 0 9.5 .263
