Wang Chien-ming's (
The 190cm right-hander from Tainan, who became the second Taiwan-born pitcher (after Tsao Chin-hui [
Wang retired the first 10 bat-ters he faced before surrendering a single in the bottom of the fourth to Orlando Hudson.
Up 3-0, the 25-year-old rookie allowed a pair of runs in the fifth when Eric Hinske led off the inning with a single and scored on Russ Adam's ground-ball out to first, two batters later.
Alex Rios would score on the ensuing play when Frank Catalanotto just beat out the throw to first for an infield single.
Accolades from his teammates filled the clubhouse following the game as the Yankees celebrated the win.
"He [Wang] made it look pretty easy," Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina said. "Maybe we're all trying too hard and we should just go out and do what he did. He looked pretty good."
Even A-Rod was pleased.
"He [Wang] was so poised out there, especially here at the Stadium," third baseman Alex Rodriguez said. "It was a nice lift, and hopefully it can bring some energy here for a while."
Wang left the game with a 3-2 lead after the seventh inning and saw fellow reliever Tom Gordon yielding a game-tying solo homer to Corey Koskie in the eighth to deny him the chance for the victory.
"It would be nice to have the win, but I'm not going to worry about it too much," Wang said during a video press conference with local reporters yesterday.
"There will be a next time," he said.
He gave himself a "B" for his first pitching performance in the majors, which included mostly his 150kph-plus fastball and a two-seamed sinker, along with a couple of splitters and sliders.
Wang came into the game well prepared.
"I was able to look at the tapes from Randy Johnson's game [on Friday] to get ready for this game," Wang said.
The Yankees' coaching staff gave Wang a 100-pitch limit without a preset number of innings to play.
He ended up throwing 81 pitches over seven frames with an impressive 54-27, strike-to-ball ratio.
Manager Joe Torre was pleased with his Taiwanese import, referring to Wang's performance as "the best start by a rookie for the Yankees since I took over as manager in 1996."
On hand to witness Wang's debut were his parents and wife Wu Jia-ling (
"Wang was great in my opinion," Wu told reporters during the video conference. "I'd give him a perfect score for what he did out there."
The Wang family will have more than a great memory of this special day to share when they return to Taiwan, because Wang Chien-ming was handed a gift from the Yankees' manager -- the starting lineup card for the game autographed by Joe Torre.
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant