The Lamigo Monkeys yesterday hammered out 17 hits on their way to a record 11-0 blowout in Game 7 against the Brothers Baseball Club to win the CPBL Taiwan Series for the second straight year.
It was a sweet victory for hosts the Monkeys, who stormed back after falling behind 3-1 early in the series and taking three straight wins to secure Taiwan’s professional baseball title, the fourth championship victory in franchise history.
Lamigo starter Pat Misch, a US pitcher who played for the San Francisco Giants in MLB, pitched a masterpiece no-hitter to shut out the Brothers and make CPBL history for the first no-hitter in championship finals.
Misch cruised through nine innings to face the minimum 27 batters with seven strikeouts for a 99-pitch shutout victory.
After the game, Misch credited teammate Liu Shih-hao (劉時豪), saying: “My catcher called a good game, I just pitched to where he wanted the ball. Then I got the batters down in order, inning by inning, and our defense was outstanding tonight.”
The 11-run margin broke the record for the most lopsided victory in a championship final, with the previous high a 13-5 rout by the Uni-President Lions over the Weichuan Dragons in 1991.
Brothers starter Chiu Pin-ruei (邱品睿) got in trouble in the opening frame, giving up a two-run homer to Lamigo slugger Ngayaw Ake (also known as Lin Chih-sheng, 林智勝) as the Monkeys grabbed a quick 2-0 lead.
Lin was voted the series’ MVP for his performance: three home runs, 14 hits, 11 RBIs and seven runs scored over the past seven games.
In the third inning, Lamigo shortstop Kuo Yen-wen (郭嚴文), with two runners on base, ripped a shot into left field for a double, bringing two runs home. At that point, Chiu was replaced by second pitcher Tu Chia-ming (杜家明).
However, Tu could do little against the Monkeys’ red hot bats, as Kuo’s double had already opened the floodgate for his team.
The next three Lamigo players all had hits, including another double by Yu Te-lung (余德龍) for two runs, resulting in the Brothers calling up their third pitcher, Lin Ying-chieh (林英傑), to contain the damage.
After that productive inning, in which the Monkeys sent 10 players to the plate, the outcome was no longer in doubt, as the hosts had piled on five runs to widen their lead to 7-0.
The Monkeys added individual runs in the sixth and seven innings, followed by two more in the eighth frame, finishing the game at 11-0.
Lamigo manager Hung Yi-chung (洪一中) said it was “a dream come true” to stage a comeback in the series to defend their title, adding: “I told my team not to think about the pressure and to just make good ball selections, not chase bad pitches and take one win at a time.”
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