Taiwanese pitcher Wang Chien-ming (王建民), who was one of the final additions to the Kansas City Royals’ 25-man roster this year, took the pitcher’s mound in the Royals’ fourth game of the season on Saturday, walking one batter and sending three others out in the ninth inning with his trademark sinker.
It was Wang’s first major league game since Aug. 25, 2013, after gaining a surprise pick on the roster.
“I am happy to be able to stand on the mound,” Wang told reporters after the game, in which the Royals beat the Minnesota Twins 7-0 at the Ewing M. Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri.
The 36-year-old reliever was called up in the ninth inning, when the Royals were leading by seven.
Wang walked the first batter and dismissed three others, including Park Byung-ho of South Korea. Wang pitched a total of 22 balls, all sinkers, gaining 13 strikes and allowing no hits.
Facing Park, who hit a homer in his major league debut the previous day, Wang threw a sinker that was clocked at 148kph.
It was a strong comeback from last year, when Wang’s trademark sinker rarely clocked more than 143kph, but a stint at the Texas Baseball Ranch in the off-season helped him improve his speed.
Earlier, Ian Kennedy had pitched impressively into the seventh inning on his Kansas City debut as the Royals hit their first three home runs of the season.
The Twins fell to 0-5 for the first time since the Washington Senators moved to Minnesota in 1961.
Kennedy (1-0), signed by the Royals on a five-year US$70 million contract in January, limited the Twins to five hits — including four singles — before being pulled after 109 pitches with two out in the seventh. He walked one and struck out seven.
Mike Moustakas and Lorenzo Cain hit successive home runs in the fourth for the first hits off Twins left-hander Tommy Milone, while Kendrys Morales homered in the sixth off Casey Fien. The last time the Royals hit back-to-back home runs was on Sept. 29 last year at the Chicago White Sox.
Milone (0-1) allowed four runs — two earned — and four hits in 4-2/3 innings.
Twins shortstop Eduardo Escobar committed two errors — one fielding and one throwing — leading to the two unearned runs in the fifth inning.
Paulo Orlando, who was making his first start of the season, had three hits, including an RBI single in the three-run sixth inning, and scored on Alcides Escobar’s two-out triple.
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
RSS