CPBL Draft and Other News...

CPBL:

FIRST ROUND PICKS
#1 - SINON BULLS
(22 y.o. DOB:11/11/85 - 6'0", 180 pounds - B:L - T:R)


#2 - MACOTO COBRAS
(24 y.o. DOB: 1/2/83 - 5'10", 165 pounds - B:L - T:L)


#3 - CHINATRUST WHALES
(23 y.o. DOB: 12/21/84 - 5'10", 157 pounds - LHP)

#4 - BROTHER ELEPHANTS
(20 y.o. DOB: 2/25/87 - 6'0", 168 pounds - RHP)


#5 - LA NEW BEARS
(22 y.o. DOB: 4/10/85 - 6'0", 175 pounds - RHP)


#6 - PRESIDENT LIONS
(22 y.o. DOB: 11/26/85 - 6'0", 182 pounds - LHP)

The CPBL held its annual draft and as expected, IF Yi-Chuan Lin was selected by the Sinon Bulls with the #1 overall pick. The Macoto Cobras, who had the #2 pick selected OF Chih-Yao Chan. The Chinatrust Whales chose P Chia-Chun Tang with the #3 pick. The Elephants with the 4th pick selected P Chia-Rui Mai. The #5 pick by the La New Bears was P Ming-Chieh Hsu. The President Lions picked last in the first round and selected P Wei-Hua Lee.

Other notables:
OF Ying-Chieh Liao was selected by the Sinon Bulls with their 2nd round pick.

The Lions selected OF Chien-Yu Kuo with their 2nd round pick.

P Yi-Che Huang was selected by the Bears with their 3rd pick.

Read more about the draft and the pending acquistion of the Cobras by DMedia here.

Other:

In the spirit of Christmas giving, Mariners farmhand Yao-Wen Chang bought jerseys for the entire Li-Hsin Little League baseball team (the same school that represented Taiwan in Williamsport in 2007). Chang is an alumni of the Li-Hsin LL team.

Red Sox minor leaguer Che-Hsuan Lin purchased $200,000 NT worth of wood bats for his alma mater: Nan-Ying HS.

Tuesday Scoop....

Amateur:
1)Taiwan lost to Tamiami, FL 16-10 in the semis of the Bronco World Series - thus ending their run in Monterey, CA. The team had fallen behind early in the game 8-1, but had managed to crawl back into the game tying things up at 10 runs apiece in the 6th inning. Unfortunately, the Tamiami squad was too powerful as they hit 2 HR's in the 7th inning to complete the scoring. Taiwan, on the basis of its record, finished 3rd in the World Series.

2)Taiwan will not be competing in the World Youth "AA" Baseball Championships that will be held in August in Venezuela - the team was not issued player visas from the host country for BS political reasons. Link If you ask me, Venezuela should NEVER be allowed to host another IBAF event again. It is sickening to see the kids from Taiwan get punished for some political platform when the only thing they really care about is playing baseball. Sports should be used as a means to unite people not segregate them! *EDITED - UPDATED

3)In the WPT, Taiwan lost another close game to Cuba - this time in 13 innings. Despite leads of 3-0 after 4 and 5-4 after 8, Taiwan came up short as Cuba pulled out a 6-5 win. DH Chun-Tai Wang cracked a HR and drove in 2 for Taiwan while OF Chih-Yao Chan was 3-7 with a double and a RBI. Box Taiwan will play the host team tomorrow.

MLB:

CMW faces off against Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay tomorrow. Should be a good one.

NPB:

The Tigers lost to the Giants 3-2. WC Lin was 1-3 with a walk. Box

US MINORS:
R - CH Wen is currently 0-1 as the Cubs play the Angels in the AZL. Box

CPBL:
Lions 17 - Bulls 6: Bulls starter Chien-Fu Yang continues to struggle this year as he fell to 3-10 on the season. Yang has been one of the top concensus domestic pitchers in the CPBL. Game MVP honors went to Lion Sen Yang, who was 3-5 with 5 RBI's. Teammate Tilson Brito was 4-6 with a double and 2 RBI's, while KC Kao was 3-5 with a RBI. For the Bulls, Tarzan was 2-4 with a double and 2 RBI's/Kuo-Long Hsu was 2-5 with a double and 2 RBI's/& Da-Hung Tseng was 2-4 with 2 RBI's.

Tsao Update #2.....

Tsao in action

Pitching on 3 days rest after a 4 inning stint on Friday, Chin-Hui Tsao made another appearance on Tuesday, this time facing off against much stiffer competition in a warmup match. Some of the bigger named batters Tsao faced off against included:

Wei-Chu Lin (Tigers),

Chih-Hsien Chiang (Red Sox),

, Wang-Wei Lin (Twins), and Chih-Yao Chan (amateur prospect). Tsao threw 3 innings, giving up 2 hits - (one to Chih-Hsien Chiang - a RBI double), allowed 1 unearned run to go along with 2 walks and 2 K's. He was clocked at a high of 92 ~ 93 mph. Another encouraging step in the right direction for Tsao.

14-0 Win for NT

Taiwan won big against the Philippines in a run mercy-shortened 6 inning game. Just about everyone in the lineup got in on the hit parade. Led by Yung-Chi Chen, Tai-Shan Chang, and Chih-Yao Chan - all of who had 3 hits and multiple RBI's, the Taiwanese NT scored 14 runs on 18 hits including 2 HR's - one each by Tai-Shan Chang and Chien-Ming Chang. Starter Ko-Chien Lin pitched a complete game shutout in which he K'd 4 and allowed only 3 hits.
Box Score
With the win, Taiwan is now firmly entrenched in the #5 spot behind Australia (combined with the fact that Australia lost today, while the Netherlands won). So essentially, Taiwan's hopes of advancing tomorrow depends on one of two things happening:1)beating Cuba tomorrow or 2)Australia losing to the Netherlands tomorrow. If scenario #2 should occur, Taiwan would also need Italy to lose to South Korea, in the event that Taiwan loses to Cuba. I think scenario #2 is more likely, but we'll see what happens tomorrow.