More than 10,000 spectators are expected to pack the Intercontinental Baseball Stadium in Taichung this afternoon to witness the 2010 Taiwan Series showdown between the Brother Elephants and the Sinon Bulls.
This year’s annual Fall Classic, with the first pitch scheduled for 5:07pm, will feature a pair of foreign starters — the Elephants’ Jim Magrane of the US, and the Bulls’ Japanese lefty ace Shoda Itsuki, both of whom have played an important role in guiding their teams into the post-season.
The Bulls won five of their last seven to close out the regular season on a high note, while the Elephants dropped their final three contests of the regular season, including a 5-1 loss in their last meeting with the Bulls on Oct. 4, with Magrane charged with the loss.
However, the Elephants’ rookie skipper Chen Rei-chen told the Taipei Times in a recent interview that he was not concerned by the slump.
“He’ll [Magrane] be fine for the opener; he is throwing the ball very well and he knows that the defense will be there for him,” Chen said.
Chen and his troops will need to keep the series a low-scoring affair as his offense is unlikely to be able to keep up with the potent Sinon bats, led by Chang “OEO” Tai-shan and Lin Yi-chuan, whose .310-plus batting averages with 133 combined RBIs will pose a serious threat to the Elephants pitching staff.
Offensively for the Elephants, lefty bats Chou Si-chi and Chen Guan-ren will need to have a good series against Sinon lefties Lin Ying-jeh (projected Game 3 starter) and Shen Yu-jeh, manager Hsu Sheng-ming’s top setup man.
“The pressure to win is definitely on us as we are slight favorites,” Hsu, who also made it to the Taiwan Series in his rookie managerial season with the former Wei Chuan Dragons, said in a press conference in Taipei on Thursday.
He and Chen Rei-chen are both graduates of Pingtung’s Meiho Senior High School, a perennial baseball powerhouse.
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
RSS