Uni-President Lions outfielder Kuo Jung-yo outslugged Brother Elephants rookie catcher Fang Keh-wei by a 7-0 margin in the final to win this year’s Home Run Derby at the Taipei County Baseball Stadium in Sinjhuang last night.
It was the second time that the third-year slugger had made it into the long ball-bashing contest during the annual All-Star weekend and Kuo made sure it would be a memorable one by launching 15 balls over the leftfield wall on the night, including seven in the finals, to pocket the coveted Home Run Derby title as well as 20g of gold and NT$60,000 (US$1,870) in prize money.
Kuo’s march to the title began with just one home run in the preliminary round that featured 12 of the league’s top hitters. He was able to edge past two other players with one blast to advance to the next round as his lone homer came with fewer outs.
Once past the preliminaries, Kuo gradually got into a groove as he rumbled past the field of eight with a pair of long balls to earn a chance to take on La New Bears slugger and defending champion Lin Chih-sheng in the semi-final, in which he went deep five times compared with Lin’s lone homer to advance, setting the stage for a showdown against Fang.
“I don’t know what happed there, but I seemed to be able to find the sweet spot more often than not tonight,” Kuo said after the contest. “Beating him [Lin] was a big thrill for me.”
Even though Kuo has not hit a home run in a regular season game this year, his bat definitely had the power to send the ball over the outfield wall, as he wowed the crowd with blast after blast to emerge from nowhere and steal the spotlight from the star names on All-Star weekend.
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