Game One of the much-anticipated three-game exhibition series between the Los Angles Dodgers and Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) All-Stars went to the local boys with the best of Taiwan topping the Dodgers 5-2 at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tianmu last night.
Pan Wu-hsiung’s (Uni-President Lions) 2-for-4 hitting with a pair of RBIs led a 12-hit attack for the CPBL All-Stars who roughed up the visitors in the surprising win.
Also starring for the local side were Wang Sheng-wei (Brother Elephants) who knocked in the first run of the game on a clutch two-out double that scored the runner of the way from first to give the hosts a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the fifth.
Both teams had trouble against the stellar pitching of Taiwanese starter Lin Ying-chieh and his counterpart Eric Stults, who held the opposing hitters to one lone hit through the first three frames.
The CPBL All-Stars finally broke the scoreless tie in the bottom of the fifth against Dodger reliever Hyang-Nam Choi with a pair of runs to lead it 2-0 and tacked on three more two innings later in the seventh that made it 5-0.
Trailing by five, the Dodgers finally got on the board in the top of the eighth when their Taiwanese shortstop Hu Chin-lung came through with a base-loaded, two-run single off reliever Keng Po-hsuan to score what ended up being the only runs that the Dodgers were able to produce.
“I knew I had to give it my best, especially in front of the entire country,” Hu said after the game.
He had missed a couple of scoring opportunities by coming up empty twice before delivering his team’s only runs in the game to make his country proud.
Power-hitter Manny Ramirez did not have the big game that was expected as he batted a disappointing 0-for-3 on the night.
Picking up the win was Lin, who allowed only one hit on four scoreless innings while the loss went to Choi who did not fare well in a relief appearance.
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