Over 10,000 people are expected to flock to the Intercontinental Baseball Stadium in Taichung this evening as the Brother Elephants host South Korea’s SK Wyverns in the opener of a two-game series between the champs of the professional leagues in the two nations.
Fresh off a four-game sweep against their respective opponents to claim this year’s titles, both squads will look to close out their campaigns for this year with a good showing, not to mention the NT$8 million (US$262,900) in prize money that the winners will pocket.
“Even though we are missing several of our players in this year’s lineup, I am confident that we will win,” Wyvern manager Kim Sung-kun said upon his arrival at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Tuesday afternoon.
MISSING PLAYERS
He will not have his staff ace Kim Kwang-hyun, reliever Chong Tae-hyon, nor slugger Kim Kang-min on this trip, as they are unavailable due to various reasons.
Standing in Kim Sung-kun’s way will be an Elephants club that accomplished a mission impossible by sweeping the heavily favored Sinon Bulls in this year’s Taiwan Series with a young squad that consisted of 15 players who were all playing in their first Taiwan Series.
“We are on a roll right now and we can do anything,” Elephants manager Chen Rei-chen said at a pep rally organized by his team’s fan club in Taichung earlier this week.
He plans to send veteran righty Orland Roman to the mound in the opener against the Koreans with Taiwan Series MVP Jim Magrane set to start in Game 2 tomorrow evening.
CHIA’S EXIT?
All eyes will be on the Elephants’ Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min, who filed for free agency earlier this week to lead a foursome of CPBL veterans (the other three being the Uni-President Lions’ Pan “Du Du” Wei-luen, the La New Bears’ Lin Chih-sheng and the Bulls’ Yang Jien-fu) who may seek to play abroad next season, making the two games against the Wyverns potentially Chia Chia’s final in Taiwan in an Elephants uniform.
Even though Chia Chia has not made any public statements about his future, he did acknowledge the fact that several foreign teams have shown interest and are actively in contact with his agent to discuss acquiring his services.
Playing fundamentally sound defense will be the key to success according to skipper Chen since he is aware of the Wyverns’ great team speed.
“Good defense is what got us the title this year and we need to keep that up in order to have a chance against them [Wyverns],” Chen said in a press conference in Taichung late yesterday afternoon.
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