Wed. News...

NPB:

Wei-Chu Lin is finally getting the recognition that he deserves for his outstanding play this year. Jim Allen, who writes for The Daily Yomiuri, has a nice writeup on Lin. There was a pretty heated discussion about Lin (back in mid-April, early May) on the JapaneseBaseball.com forums regarding his lack of PT. At that time, Jim Allen addressed the issue on Lin's lack of PT - attributing antiquated selectivity on the part of Hanshin's coaching staff. Personally, prior to Lin breaking in full time with the Tigers, I was beginning to think that Lin was going to get the short end of the stick, just like CFC did with the Dodgers.
Lin, who needs a few more plate appearances to qualify for the CL batting crown, raised his BA to .343 today. He was 3-4 with a run scored to help lead his team to a 3-1 win over the Seibu Lions. Box

US MINORS:
AA - Hu was 1-4 as Jacksonville lost 3-2. Box

A - Greenville won 5-3. Chiang was 1-4 with a double. Box

A - Wisconsin lost 10-9, but Lo did all he could to give his team a chance to win - cracking his 2nd HR of the year and also throwing out a runner at the plate. Lo was 3-5 with a HR, a 2B, a RBI, and 4 runs scored. Box

Olympic News:

The Korean preliminary NT has been announced. As expected, the Korean NT will be made up of the best players from their domestic league and overseas. Read more here and here.

As for the Japanese NT, it looks like the cream of the crop won't be participating in the Asian Olympic Qualifier.

CPBL:
Cobras 9 - Elephants 2: Cobras OF RC Yang was 3-4 to earn game MVP honors. Cobras starter Jose Rodriguez picked up his first win, throwing 6 innings and allowing 1 run on 6 hits. For the Elephants, Chia-Chia was 0-3, while teammate Huai-Shan Chen was 3-4.

Bears 6 - Bulls 5: In search of his 4th win, Bears SP Wen-Hsiung Hsu tired in the 7th, after blanking the Bulls for the first 6 innings. Hsu would earn a ND after allowing 3 runs on 4 hits in 6.1 innings. Opposing starter Chung-Nan Tsai got off to an ominous start after allowing 2 HR's (one to Chih-Sheng Lin, his 4th roundtripper of the season) in the first inning to fall behind 3-0 after 1. However, despite the poor start and allowing 5 walks, he would manage to blank the Bears for the next 5 innings. Game MVP honors went to Bears 2B Chih-Tsung Chiang who drove in 2 key runs in the 8th inning to help give the Bears a lead they would not relinquish.

It's All About the Lins....

NPB SPRING TRAINING TIDBITS:

On Sunday in the NPB, the Hanshin Tigers played the Nippon Fighters in ST.

Lin #1

Tigers OF Wei-Chu Lin cracked a 2 run HR in the 6th inning to help lead his team to a 10-9 win. Lin has been swinging the bat well in BP as of late. Youngster C.S. Yang did not see the field for the Fighters.

Lin x 2

Pitchers En-Yu Lin, Ying-Chieh Lin, and Chien-Ming Chiang all participated on their respective team's intrasquad games on Sunday as well. Nothing important to note, although E.Y. Lin was clocked at 91 mph on his fastball. Y.C. Lin maxed out at 85 mph on his fastball.

One and Done....

TJ - Damn, we hardly knew you!

TJ Yeh was released by the Red Sox per Frank via BaseballAmerica's recent minor league transaction detail list. TJ played one year in the organization with the Lowell Spinners and posted subpar numbers in limited appearances. TJ will head back home and play in the CPBL - he'll probably join the team that originally drafted him - the Elephants. TJ is the second Taiwanese flameout for the Red Sox, following in the footsteps of Kevin Huang.



Spring training news on Chung-Shou Yang: Yang tweaked a hammy doing windsprints on Friday. The injury isn't too bad as Yang cranked out 7 HR's in 33 swings yesterday.

In other NPB ST news, sad to say, but it looks like Wei-Chu Lin's chances of getting more PT might hinge on the health of CF N. Akahoshi. Lin cranked out 9 HR's in 63 swings in a recent session.

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.

Following in the footsteps of Lin and Yang...

Top Prospect:
Yi-Hao Lin

Talking to a friend the other day, I was amazed to learn that each year a number of top Taiwanese middle school/high school prospects go on to Japan to play HS baseball there. The amazing part of the story is the fact that of all the kids who've gone over to Japan, only two have panned out: Wei-Chu Lin of the Hanshin Tigers and Chung-Shou Yang of the Nippon Fighters - and both guys are positional players (OF and IF). None of the Taiwanese pitchers have ever panned out. Well, Yi-Hao Lin, a 15 year old righty, will try to change all of that. Lin, who throws easily in the 90 to 93 mph range already, will attend HS in Japan. Lin has a contract with the Yomiuri Giants, so in the event Lin is successful, he will end up in the NPB. The negotiations on Lin's behalf were assisted by Lin's junior high school coach, Wu-Hsiung Huang and the WBC NT coach Hwa-Wei Lin. The best compliment paid by my friend to Lin is the fact that Lin's raw ability at his age is already better than both ML's Wang and Tsao were at the same age. Lin will represent Taiwan's under 16 National Youth Team that will play in Indonesia and compete for the title of Asia's finest in September.

*edited 7/20/06